Analysts on eBay: Nice Quarter, But More Work Needed

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."