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Technology Stocks : eBay - Superb Internet Business Model -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nelson Chang who wrote (4308)	7/27/1999 5:39:00 AM
From: Jeff Dryer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7772

Can somebody please explain this paragraph? It makes no sense whatsoever. From CBS MarketWatch cbs.marketwatch.com The primary contributor to EBay's sales was growth in traffic. EBay said the number of registered users increased by a record 1.7 million in the quarter to 5.6 million, up 556 percent from the year-ago period. That's far ahead of what Lauren Cooks Levitan, an Internet analyst at BancBoston Robertson Stephens, had anticipated. Levitan had estimated new users on the order of 4.3 million. EBay hosted 29.4 million auctions in the quarter. Isn't it correct that eBay has a total of 5.6 million registered users since the beginning of time and gained an additional 1.7 million additional registered users during the quarter? And then, this Lauren Cooks Levitan analyst who works for a celebrated institution says it's far ahead of estimates of 4.3 million new users. Huh?

To: Nelson Chang who wrote (4308)	7/27/1999 5:58:00 AM
From: Jeff Dryer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7772

Ever notice how results are almost always ahead of estimates... sometimes "far ahead!". Almost eveytime an Internet company releases earnings, the headlines are "BEAT ESTIMATES!" and then I look at the actual Income Statements and the numbers are almost always very tiny... slightly larger than your average mom and pop bookstore. But the analysts are always so impressed with the numbers their favorite $10 billion, $20 billion, and $40 billion market cap companies are producing. Analysts love to talk about exploding Internet growth, but again I look at the last 4 quarters that many Internet companies are reporting and my question is where is the growth? Much of the growth reported is from acquisitions which are usually dilutive to earnings. I just listened to a conference call with an analyst discussing eBay. He kept talking about exploding Internet growth, so the interviewer asked the logical question "what growth are you estimating?". The analyst said he didn't know. It wasn't his speciality. Other people are paid to figure that sort of thing out. Then he said growth could be 30% or it could be 500%. My conclusion: These aren't real analysts. They are talking head PR types. The Internet is not that unpredictable. Analysts either want to fool people into thinking the possibilities are limitless and/or they just don't know what they are talking about and so say stupid things.

To: Nelson Chang who wrote (4308)	7/27/1999 10:32:00 AM
From: Doug Fowler	Respond to of 7772

Nelson: I agree with you regarding the acquisitions, at least the "land-based" ones, as eBay refers to them. I didn't hear anything in the conference call about how Butterfield and Butterfield is strategic to the core business of eBay. All I gathered was that they were old-style business with very slow growth. I would have liked to hear what eBay is doing to make these land-based acquisitions pay off for their core business. I do like the potential of their Billpoint acquisition so far. That could turn out to be very smart for eBay.