eBay Falls as Analyst Cuts Target

eBay, Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) fell 6 to 32 5/16 Tuesday after Dain Rauscher Wessels analyst George Sutton reportedly slashed his price target for the stock to US$50 from $115.

Reports said Sutton changed his view of the online auctioneer to reflect the current market environment.

eBay, however, is enjoying a surge in visitors this holiday season. A report from Media Metrix found that in the two weeks ended November 26th and December 3rd, the site averaged 60 percent more unique daily visitors than Amazon.com, the Internet's top retail site.

Daily visits to online auction sites overall were running 62 percent ahead of the same period last year, with eBay seeing an 89 percent increase, the report showed. "There's the popular notion that Amazon is the king of online shopping destinations, but there's another shopping destination that is drawing critical mass: eBay," Media Metrix researcher Max Kalehoff told the E-Commerce Times.

Yet eBay shares have not fared well in recent months, as technology and e-commerce issues in general have languished. eBay shares set a 52-week low last month, falling to 29 1/4 on November 22nd. Six months earlier, the stock had traded as high as 127 1/2.

In October, the auction giant reported strong results for the third quarter, earning $19.1 million, or 7 cents per share, as revenue rose 98 percent from a year earlier.

Chief executive officer Meg Whitman has predicted the company will see revenue of US$3 billion by 2005, which would mean a growth rate of 50 percent per year. Lehman Brothers analyst Holly Becker, in a research note last month, called that target "aggressive" and said it raises a "red flag" as far as the stock is concerned.