Pegging eBay’s First Earnings Under CEO Donahoe (EBAY)

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

After today’s close, we’ll get to see earnings out of eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY). The estimates for the online auction platform from First Call are $0.39 EPS on $2.08 billion in revenues.  Next quarter estimates are $0.40 EPS on $2.11 billion in revenues, and estimates for fiscal Dec-2008 are $1.68 EPS on $8.79 billion in revenues.

Last quarter, eBay offered guidance for fiscal 2008 non-GAAP earnings of $1.63 to $1.67 on revenues of $8.5 to $8.75 Billion, while First Call had estimates at that time of $1.66 EPS on roughly $9 Billion in revenues.  At that time, analysts had an average price target of almost $40.00.  As of now, analysts have an average price target north of $35.00.

On last look, options traders appear to be bracing for a move of up to $1.05 in either direction.  eBay is now well above its 50-day moving average of $28.61, but it is currently bumping up against its more solid 200-day moving average of $32.64.  Shares are now up almost 30% from the 52-week lows that were just put in last month.

Just recently, Merrill Lynch raised it to BUY from Neutral.

eBay’s 52-week trading range is $25.10 to $40.73, and shares are up more than 3% at $32.60 shortly after 12:00 PM EST. 

What may make this more interesting than earnings and guidance issued before is that the call will be under new CEO John Donahoe. Meg Whitman was auctioned away.

Jon C. Ogg
April 16, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter.  He can be reached at [email protected] and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618