eBay 3rd Q earnings- takes the Skype bullet, still standing tall

If you back out the painful losses from its ill-advised Skype purchase, eBay posted some pretty impressive earnings numbers today for the 3rd quarter of 2007. EPS of $.41 well exceeded the market expectations of $.33 on an operating income of $593 million and net revenues of $1.89 billion, an increase over same quarter of '06 of 30%. The company also purchased back almost 15 million shares during the quarter.

With the Skype fallout included, however, the picture was less rosy. GAAP operating income was in the red by $938 million, for a loss of 69 cents. However, the company told the Wall Street Journal (subscription) that that it does not anticipate having any future charges related to Skype to sully future earnings reports.

eBay credits strong performance by its PayPal program, StubHub, and advertising businesses for the stronger than expected performance. The market responded with a late surge, driving the stock up to close at $40.60, an increase of 5.18% for the day.

Visit AOL Money & Finance for more earnings coverage