Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel, will receive an annual salary of just $1 through 2008. Yes you heard it right, only $1 dollar. However, for the next three years, Semel also will be eligible to receive an annual bonus of up to 1 million shares and the option to purchase 6 million shares at an exercise price of $31.59.

Its a big risk to Semel if you look at it. The current price now as of this writing is $30.82. I've checked Yahoo's stocks and from Jan 2006, it is going down.

So do you think Semel made a wrong move? Personally, I don't think so. Since 2003, Yahoo's overall stock trend is going up. The longest downward trend was from Jan 2006 to present. I'm no stock analyst but I believe Yahoo's stock prices is now cheap.

Yahoo is in the right place and the right time now to move up. With the recent alliance with eBay and the upcoming release of Yahoo Publisher Network which is already in beta testing, I strongly believe that the stock prices will shoot up towards the end of 2006.

The $1 salary follows moves by other tech executives, including Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs. Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, and co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, have also voluntarily agreed to cut their annual salaries down to that token sum. Their salary loss is more than offset by the millions the Google executives have made off stock sales.

[via CNET ]