When Yahoo rolled out of bed this morning its stock was at an abysmal $11.75. Then it lost another 40 cents in early trading as the market plummeted again. At lunch time, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw it a lifeline.

On stage at Gartner’s gathering this week in Florida, Steve suggested that a Yahoo acquisition – or at least a search partnership – still makes economic sense to Microsoft – not that Yahoo doesn’t still think it’s worth 40 bucks a share.

He’s quoted as saying, “I still think it [an acquisition] would make sense economically for their shareholders and ours.”

According to Bloomberg, he also said, “‘It’s clear that Yahoo did not want to sell the company. It didn’t want to sell when we offered $33. Perhaps there will be continuing opportunities to talk about a search partnership in the future.”

Steve would be bottom fishing at this point. Yahoo has lost something like $20 billion in market cap the last few months and its revenue-sharing deal with Google is having problems passing regulatory scrutiny.

• When Bartz is Ready, We Will Have a Discussion: Ballmer