Despite good news from Wall Street analysts today: Rochdale Securities upgraded eBay to buy from hold with a $35 target price, and RBC initiated coverage at hold, with the same price target, eBay slipped nearly 1.5% today to close at $30.28.

Concerns are mounting among investors especially after a local research firm in Taipei released its data.  The analyst claims eBay has been losing ground in China to one of its competitors, especially in the C2C (consumer to consumer) sales.

Somewhat different were the words of Martin Wu, chief executive at eBay China.  He claimed only a few weeks ago that revenue increased more than 10 per cent in the first quarter and that revenue of its competitor Taobao, remained unchanged.

The attempt to consolidate the difference between the analyst's data and the chairman data were unfruitful.

eBay was the leader in the Chinese auction market but in January had to drop transaction fees from basic C2C services.  This is due to the introduction of a free auction service by rival Taobao in 2004 that caused a massive flight of consumers in its direction.

But have no fear, Forbes has just published an article saying that in the event of a bird flu pandemic, eBay should do well.  Here's something to hope for.

As of 1:42 this afternoon, MSFT is down 11% - that's a whopping $31 billion in market capitalization in one day - to $24.24. One of the commenters to my post last night suggests that "we all just get out of all stocks and then "all stupid analysts can be fired and work in the fields with the Mexican farm workers, because that's what they deserve !!"

While that makes me laugh uproariously with my buddies at the coffee shop, I really don't blame the analysts here. It's not like Microsoft has really given them precise figures to consider. And, in my opinion (and I'd argue, the opinion of those analysts, themselves), MSFT management strategies are murky at best. The Goldman Sachs analyst in last night's earnings call said it best, "It sounds like you're building a Google or Yahoo! inside the company." They're spending a few billion dollars more than expected (and, more than last year) on "cost of sales" and they're telling us that all that money is being spent on increased Xbox 360 costs. I don't think so. And neither does Wall Street.

Chris Liddell isn't going to tell us what's really going on, and my guess is that Softie is building, deliberately and at great developer expense, proprietary software to do what all their competitors are doing. They've already spent a ton on their own ad serving platform - is that only the tip of the iceberg? The answer, I think, is yes. What do you think should be done about the 11% drop in market cap? And are you considering this a buying opportunity? Or are you run, running as fast as you can?