Not Bullish on eBay

4/17 - "While the company should continue to produce solid growth thanks to the strength of its business model PayPal -- along with international opportunities -- these positives are already reflected in EBAY shares.

What's more, we are concerned with slowing consumer spending, increasing competition and the potential for its profit margins to contract further. That said, the stock trades at a reasonable valuation of 18x to 19x our 2008 EPS estimate. As a result, we maintain our Hold rating and expect EBAY shares to perform in line with the overall market this year."

4/17 - "It's hard not to love PayPal. Dot-com heavies such as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) -- and even banking giants such as Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) -- have tried to take on the online-payment service over the year, with humbling results.

PayPal is just too popular, as was clearly evident during the latest quarter. The number of active accounts clocked in 17% higher, yet the total payment volume soared by 34%, to $14.4 billion. In other words, people are leaning on PayPal even more with every passing quarter."

"eBay is also raising its guidance for 2008. It's looking to earn $1.70 to $1.75 a share in adjusted earnings -- just ahead of the $1.68 a share that Wall Street was looking for -- on $8.7 billion to $9.0 billion in revenue.

With enough powerful subordinates to pick up any slack from eBay's namesake site coasts, the auction maven's certainly still breathing. Now, the new management team will have to elevate it back to "alive and kicking."

4/17 - "Last night, eBay delivered the quarter many bulls had hoped to see, with better than expected revenues and profits. But the stock is sliding today, as the Street pokes holes in the numbers. The stock had rallied 25% over the last month heading into last night’s report, so what we’re seeing today at least in part involves some profit-taking. But it also reflects a nearly unanimous view on the Street that the company still has to find a way to re-energize growth in its core Marketplaces business.

Whether bullish or bearish, the song the analysts are singing this morning is the same: Nice quarter, but the company has a long way to go to revitalizing growth."

"Tim Boyd, American Technology Research: He downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy. Boyd’s view: upside in the stock is limited until the company can re-accelerate growth in active users and gross merchandise value. He also notes that the company faces “both macro-economic headwinds and the prospect of continued market share losses to other e-commerce channels.”

"Jeffrey Lindsay, Bernstein Research: Lindsay maintains his Outperform rating. But he notes that the strong Q1 “was patched together out of better than expected performances at PayPal, Skype, StubHub, Classified and Advertising supported by a favorable exchange rate, cross border trade and low taxes.” But he adds that: “still, a win’s a win, and the reward is time for the new CEO to fix the core business.” Still to be solved: stagnating active user growth, flat listings and slowing gross merchandise value."