In the world of tech stocks, this quarter, eBay can't get no love. The stock is down 40% on the year, as Jonathan Berr points out, and at $25.92 -- down 2.52% on the day -- a few minutes before today's market close, flirting with its three-year low.
The stock has taken a beating thanks to management exiting under questionable circumstances, potential competitive threat from Google, worries that Skype may be a money-losing (or at least, no-money-making) proposition, and the general malaise of the tech sector -- Yahoo!'s terrible performance over the past 24 hours is no help.
The consensus expectation for eBay earnings, due out in an hour: 24 cents a share, up from 22 cents in the second quarter 2005, on revenues of $1.41 billion, up 30% from Q2 2005. It seems as if the company will have to do a lot better to regain investor confidence, as well as doing some explaining about the strategic direction of both the important Skype and PayPal units, and the management team as a whole.
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