posted on May 26, 2001 01:19:35 PM
Look at all the Insider Sales for eBay stock since April. Even Meg's been selling a ton of shares.
http://biz.yahoo.com/t/e/ebay.html
If the economy continues to go in the tank, consumer spending dries up, eBay's moves really do alienate sellers, and the Storefront initiative doesn't work out as well as hoped, eBay's stock price could be in for a freefall. Meg's laid out some very aggressive targets to meet over the coming years. The wildcard is if any of these other auction venues, or maybe more than 1, finally begins to make inroads against eBay due to their miscues. eBay sports an astronomical PE of 261. The price should be 1/10th of what it is now, not nearing an all-time high. 11% of the float is shorted and it appears the Shorts see eBay as the next stock to be crushed. Something to watch.
posted on May 26, 2001 04:12:09 PM
Actually the sell off is more then likely a result of the rise in stock prices and not due to a slow down.
The economy and stocks are slowly but definately in recovery and have been for the past few months.
Profit takeing when the market is not all that unusual pull out some money to invest in other riseing stocks while they are still bargans. http://www.Dman-N-Company.com
posted on May 26, 2001 04:34:14 PM
Again? They do this quite frequently, actually. And it may be as said, just a good time to sell. Although it does strike me just a tad odd that whenever Meg is selling Pierre's selling and vice versa.
Looks like quite a few of them are making a tidy sum this time, doesn't it?
posted on May 26, 2001 07:11:44 PM
You might be right, but I'm sure the execs realize the 261 P/E has to be brought into line at some point. They might as well take profits while the gettings good! If the Cisco's, Intel's, EMC's, SUN's, and other top tier companies were brought to their knees by the market, why wouldn't eBay at some point? Greenspan's words last week doesn't give you a warm and fuzzy feeling about the economy either. If I were the execs I'd be chucking shares as well!
posted on May 26, 2001 07:57:03 PM
When a company goes public, certain insiders get millions of restricted shares. These shares are not saleable until a company has gone public for several years.
After this time period, another group of insiders (usually the ones with the most number of shares) are still restricted from selling all their stock at once. Instead, they are allow to sell a small percentage every quarter.
What you are seeing is probably Meg selling her allowable percentage for the quarter. You probably see this every quarter as Meg owns a lot of ebay stock.
posted on May 26, 2001 08:27:53 PM
Would like to see open market Insider buying to counter the Insider selling. Would show investors that execs believe the stock is fairly valued. But no it's totally one-sided. No buying and all selling by execs and Insiders, and an astronomical P/E of 261.
eBay's been public 7 years (since 1995) so Meg's had plenty of time to sell what she wanted. However, she has every right to sell and capitalize. She earned it. But to buy when Meg and the Insiders are selling millions of shares is a little foolish. Some of those senior execs are dumping 200000 shares, 600000 shares, 266000 shares, 180000 shares, etc. These are MASSIVE sales! They're frontrunning something although you can't say its Insider Trading. Has to have something to do with all the dicey moves eBay is planning for the rest of the year that we're all well aware of, in addition to the sky high valuation. Maybe they fear there's a good possibility some will backfire, or the economy will derail eBay's projections.
posted on May 27, 2001 12:30:35 AM
I tend to agree on profit downturn in the near future. As a 3.5 yr. veteran seller at eBay, I\'ve seen them grasping at straws when they started to:
1. charge .10 for 10 day auctions
2. charge $1.00 for reserve auctions
3. charge for iPix photo hosting
4. charge for Gallery images
5. listing the same item in two categories
6. highlighting listing line
7. bolding listing line
8. feature listing
I wouldn\'t be suprised if they start to charge per word, and how many views the ad has, how many bidders it has, etc.
I feel that the number of buyers/sellers has reached a saturation point and it will be very difficult to maintain the growth they had.
posted on May 27, 2001 02:35:14 AM
Ebay didn't go public until '98 or '99 after dear old Meg came. That's when they all got their millions of shares and they have to apply for permission or whatever when they want to sell off hundreds of thousands of shares.
They do this as often as they can or are allowed to and now is a particularly good time since it was at 30 just 2 months ago and was up to 64 on Fridays high.
I don't think they want to wait for another high of 220 or even 110. Those days are as far gone as ebays "community". The boom times are over both in the stock and in the site.
That's the nature of the stock anyway and also a lot of internet stocks, If you follow them they look like a rollercoaster ride over the long haul. It's just a matter of time before ebay takes another plunge.
Ebay was a day traders dream-buying in at 60, selling off at 200, buying in at 60 again , selling off at 100, buying in at 30, selling at 60. Yep, anyone with patience (and a little money) could have made a fortune over the past 3 years.
posted on May 27, 2001 05:17:51 AM
IF... and it's a BIG IF, eBay takes revenues up to $3 billion as projected, you will find the present 262 P/E and present price very reasonable.
But it could be worse for us sellers if eBay is not successful with the revenue projections. There will be quite an upheaval on the equity side and internal management at eBay.
