The blogosphere has lately been debating the true value of eBay after Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck upgraded the shares and set a price target of $33. Barron's tech trader covered the news yesterday, and today Fat Pitch Financials weighs in at SeekingAlpha.

Fat Pitch blogger George (I couldn't find his name on the site, but he is a Buffett-style amateur investor with sterling academic credentials) thinks it's not time to buy eBay yet. He comes up with an intrinsic value for the stock of $28.75. But he says eBay, now at $24.50, would have to drop to $21.50 before he would jump in.

He dubs it only "worth watching" noting that eBay overpaid for Skype, its partnership with Yahoo may not lead to much until Yahoo gets its new ad software up and running, and its core e-commerce site is too cluttered and complicated to attract the scads of new buyers it needs -- despite the launch of eBay Express.

I have to agree with much of his analysis. And I have one more negative to throw in -- Amazon's weak earnings report yesterday doesn't spell good news for the e-commerce sector in general.

Sure, eBay is now 50% off its January high and we may be reaching the point of maximum pessimism about the company's prospects. But until I see a truly exciting new product or deal announced, or the stock gets cheaper, it looks like dead money to me.

eBay's getting cheaper -- but not cheap enough originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.