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

To: Doug Fowler who wrote (32)	8/26/1998 9:24:00 PM
From: Steven Wexler	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7772

I have been following your posting on eBay since the start. First let me say I think eBay is a very promising e-commerce endeavor, and plan at this point on investing in them. Having operated an international mail order company for ten years permits me to see some of the advantages of their business model. Having looked up their prospectus I found that they made $2,900,00 in pretax income for the first 6 months of 98', vs. $848,000 for the same period 97'. What I don't understand is the extraordinary tax declared for the first 6 months is $2,552,000 leaving income continuing as the paltry sum of $348,000. For some reason I can't explain I believe it may have something to do with the acquisition of Up4Sale. Also I am interested in knowing what their game plan if for this acquisition, since at this point they are not charging sellers. If my recollection is correct this firm was asking for donations from sellers for a charitable cause instead of charging for services. Of coarse many auctions sites are not charging for their services in the hopes of building a seller base. I was hopeful e*trade would be offering shares of eBays IPO through RobertsonStephens but it does not look promising. I understand that GoldmanSachs requires a minimum of a $5,000,000 account to get on board through them, although I not absolutely certain this is true. I have gone to a brokers site called Wit Capital who, I believe, try to acquire shares to resale to clients of theirs. Of coarse they would get a premium but it still might be better than when the shares are available on the open market. Do you know anything about them? From, Steven The escalating bull, now better known as the emasculating bull