Too much monkey business in a bear market

After recent bullishness about eBay's share price, we were due a nay-sayer. Amey Stone thinks it's time to sell:

Will the holidays be good for eBay? As a one-time eBay shopper, I'm skeptical. There remains a long-term risk to the stock that too little customer service and too much monkey-business by scammers will erode market share in the year to come.

PayPal winning over google

Cramer (of CNBC) thinks PayPal is still winning over Google Checkout, this despite Google giving the service free of transaction fees for the next year. In a change of position he recommends buying eBay stock as it's undervalued.

Crammer also likes shopping.com yet another reason the group (who's day to day operations were taken over in July by Josh Silverman back in July) is becoming more and more important to the eBay group as a whole. This is one area of eBay's portfolio worth watching with business reportedly up this quarter by some 40% compared to last year.

PayPal success, shopping.com, a deal with Yahoo and Baidu.com along with some $3.2B in the bank have convinced the analysts that eBay is ending the year in fine shape and stocks are undervalued.

Buy it now

eBay have made 24/7 Wall Street's top ten most undervalued stocks list:

According to Yahoo!Finance, the price target for EBay's shares is as high as $45 among the 19 analysts listed by Thomson/First Call as covering the company. And, that would not even take it back to its 12-month high.

*That's* what I want for Christmas :-D

eBay top of the stocks

Financial bloggers Seeking Alpha have chosen eBay as number three in their all-time top ten tech stocks. They write:

eBay's stock chart is arguably the most impressive one for the reason that unlike other Web companies of the 1994-2000 era, its genius business model was clear and investors ate it up. Unlike many companies that experienced a stock market meltdown in 2000-03, eBay's income statement thrived, and it leveraged its balance sheet to acquire Paypal for $1.5B in one of the best Web acquisitions of all time which today contributes a growing share of its top and bottom line.

eBay is trading within a reasonable range of its all time high and considering the growth of e-commerce, its recent deal with Yahoo! and [admittedly expensive] acquisition of Skype, the company’s upside is considerable.

eBay also featured on the Top Ten Best Acquisitions list for their purchase of Paypal, and the Ten Worst Acquisitions list for Skype.

eBay Seller Rewards bolster Share Price

The launch of the Seller Rewards program on eBay.co.uk has had far reaching impact throughout the corporate world. Analyst Robert Peck notes "This is significant because eBay is "finally" trying to create incentives for its sellers to dole out more goods which is something it's failed to adequately do so far."

It's great to see strategies that benefit sellers who are growing their businesses also underpinning eBay's share price! A real 'Win Win' situation.