EBay stock rises on Q4 earnings beat
EBay (EBAY) reported fourth-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street estimates. The e-commerce company reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.07 compared to the $1.03 estimate. Revenue of $2.56 billion was about in line with the expected $2.51 billion. EBay also announced it was raising its dividend and that its board authorized an additional $2 billion worth of stock repurchases.
Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton break down the results.
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Editor's note: This article was written by Stephanie Mikulich
Video Transcript
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JULIE HYMAN: Let's get to an after-hours movement here. It is eBay-- the shares rising some 4% after beating on the top and bottom line for its fourth quarter. The company raised its dividend as well by 8% and announced a $2-billion stock buyback authorization. The revenue figure up 2% to about $2.6 billion. Give or take, you can see 2.56 earnings per share beating estimates. And the company's gross merchandise volume rose by 2% to $18.6 billion.
JOSH LIPTON: Yeah, eBay is interesting. I mean, it's obviously lots of competition from some big names. You think of Amazon, for example. They have been in cost-cutting mode. Remember, last month, they announced they were going to cut jobs. I think it amounted to around 9%, 10% of their full-time workforce. If you look at-- certainly higher here in the after-hours in this report. Pull back the chart, though. The stock is basically flat so far this year. And over the past 12 months, it's gone basically nowhere. It's down about 3%. If you look at analysts-- the men and women who are paid to tell you what to do with it-- they are not fans either. More than 70% even now is still on the sidelines.
JULIE HYMAN: And even if you look at a longer term, you look at a five-year chart of this thing-- it's up about 3% in that time-- I guess, small comfort-- it's better than PayPal has performed over that period of time. Its one time partner, right, before PayPal--
JOSH LIPTON: Yeah, look at that chart there.
JULIE HYMAN: --got spun off. But yeah, not doing great here. In the statement here, Jamie Iannone, who is the CEO talking about that they are trying to reinvent the future of e-commerce for enthusiasts. That's sort of the tack they've taken in recent years or last year specifically. So we'll see if that-- I mean, the stock is up.
JOSH LIPTON: At least initially, investors like it here.
JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, yeah.
