Is Ebay Fairly Priced?

Ebay (NASDAQ:EBAY) is a large cap stock with a market capitalization of $40.55 billion. The company is a commerce company, which operates through its Marketplace, StubHub and Classifieds platforms.

Ebay is located to the special retail industry, a part of the services sector. The biggest competitors are Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Etsy (NASDAQ:ETSY) and Wayfair (NYSE:W). Here is a full list of my peer holdings for ebay:



The ebay stock is up 41.14% over the past year which is a clear outperformance compared to the S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq. 

Source: Googlefinance.com

EBAY outperformed the market in recent months. Is it now a good time to buy, not to buy, wait or sell the stock? In this article, I will check the financial and valuation figures of the company and give a clear statement to the current situation.

I developed a simple system to evaluate the financial health of a company. It looks at the following six key metrics...

- Profitability (+)

The profitability of EBAY is good. The operating margin of EBAY amounts to 24.90% compared to 12.58% of the peer average.



- Debt Situation (-)

I use the debt-to-equity ratio as qualified measure to evaluate the debt situation.

The debt-to-equity ratio for Ebay amounted to 0.77. Compared to the peer ratio of just 0.6, the online auction company seems to be working with a higher leverage, which is in general bad due to a higher financial risk.



- Dividend Yield (-)

Ebay pays no dividends. The peer average offers a ratio of 0.21%. Most of the peers don’t pay a dividend. Mercadolibre (NASDAQ:MELI) is the only company with quarter dividends.



- P/E Ratio (+)

The current price-to-earnings ratio of EBAY amounts to 5.3. Compared to figures from the peer group, which are valuated with an average ratio of 72.71, Ebay looks cheaper than other companies in the industry.

This impression is also intact when we look at the forward P/E ratios. Ebay’s forward P/E is 16.83.



- Capital Returns (+)

Capital returns are important for investors. Two most used ratios to evaluate the capital efficiency of a company are the return on equity and return on investment.

All return ratios have better values than the peer average.



- Sales and EPS Growth (-)

Sales and earnings growth figures are also very important for investors. Quarter over Quarter, Ebay is losing market share with a sales growth of just 3.7% compared to an peer average value of 29.26%.


Ebay receives a "Hold Positive" rating

Ebay passes three of my six key metrics. Similar to my investment rating scheme, EBAY receives a Hold Positive Rating from me.

Rating	# Metrics
Strong Buy	5 +
Buy	4 +
Hold Positive	3 +
Hold Negative	2 +
Sell	1 +

What do you think about ebay? Is it a buy, hold or sell?

20 Technology Dividend Stocks, Most Shorted By Investors

Technology dividend stocks with the highest float short ratio originally published at "long-term-investments.blogspot.com". Activists often sell stocks short. In the second step, they try to scary other investors in order to get the stock price down and to make some profits.

Today I like to show you which of the technology stocks have the highest float short ratio. The ratio shows you how many shares have been sold short. It’s ever interesting to see which companies have some problems and investors like to speculate on a falling stock price. The higher the ratio is, the bigger the problems of the company.

These are my criteria:

- Positive Dividend Yield

- Technology Sector Relationship

- Float Short Ratio over 5 percent

- Market Capitalization above 2 Billion

20 technology dividend stocks have fulfilled these criteria. I recognized that technology stocks with a high float short are also highly priced but I don’t think that it’s the only reason for the short sale. Companies like Nokia have a tough fight to compete with companies like Apple or Samsung within the smart phone market. The market speculates that Nokia will fail to gain market shares.

57 Stocks With Dividend Growth From Last Week

Stocks with dividend hikes from last week originally published at “long-term-investments.blogspot.com”. The total number of stocks which announced a dividend hike shrank to 57 over the last week. That’s still a big value compared to figure of the recent months. 

Dividend growth is still a popular source for growing wealth and I discover every weeks the latest growth stocks and publish them in my Dividend Weekly and on my blog.

My favorite pick this week is Colgate. The toothpaste maker hiked its dividends by 9.7 percent. Many stocks from the financial and services sector are on the list. It could be sign for a stronger growth perspective within these areas.

57 stocks and funds raised dividends last week of which 39 have a dividend growth of more than 10 percent. The average dividend growth amounts to 20.04 percent. Linked is a full free list of all companies and funds with some price ratios to compare.

Below the results are 4 High-Yields, stocks with over 5 percent dividend yield. 27 companies have a current buy or better rating.

The Best Dividend Stocks from the Business Service Industry To Buy Now

The Best Yielding Shares from the Business Services Sector Originally At “long-term-investments.blogspot.com”. An interesting industry is in my view the business services industry. Nearly 100 companies are related to the sector of which only 30 pay dividends to its shareholders. The total capitalization of the sector amounts to $7.25 trillion. The average dividend yield within the industry amounts to 25.4 and the yield reach 1.1 percent.

I like the industry because of the high profit margins, which corresponds at 10.20 percent and is one of the highest values in the sector. The most known stocks are Visa (V), MasterCard (MA) and Moody’s (MCO). Business service is often financial networked.

I made a screen of the best yielding stocks within the business services industry. In order to reduce the huge amount of 30 dividend paying business service stocks, I selected only those with double-digit earnings per share growth. As a result, sixteen stocks remain of which market analysts trust in eleven companies and recommend them to buy now.

13 Of The Best Dividend Paying Services Stocks (Strong Growing Stocks With Low Debt)

Best Services Dividend Stocks Researched By “long-term-investments.blogspot.com”. Stocks from the services sector are important for a consumer based economy like the United States Economy. At the capital markets are 899 stocks available with a relationship to service. The whole market capitalization of them amounts to USD 50.88 trillion. The average dividend yield has a value of 1.84 percent and the P/E ratio is 20.14.

In order to find the best dividend paying large cap growth stocks from the investment class, I screened all companies with a positive dividend yield, great earnings per share growth of more than 10 percent and an operating margin over 15 percent. To get the best results in terms of low debt and high cash, the debt to equity ratio should be under 0.5. Finally, the market capitalization should be above USD 2 billion. Thirteen services stocks remained of which eleven are currently recommended to buy.

11 Services Dividend Stocks With Gaining Earnings Momentum

Services Dividend Stocks With Accelerated Growth Researched By Dividend Yield - Stock, Capital, Investment. Service stocks are characterized by cyclic business models, low margins and partially high growth due to the business cyclic. The whole sector has a total market capitalization of USD 46.3 trillion. The average company has a P/E ratio of 20.45 as well as a dividend yield of 1.83 percent.

In order to find some opportunities, I screened the sector by dividend stocks with an earnings growth of more than ten percent over the past five years. In order to catch up only those stocks with a gaining earnings momentum, I observed only those stocks with a quarter over quarter sales and earnings per share growth of more than twenty percent. Exactly eleven companies fulfilled these criteria of which one is a high yield; nine are recommended to buy.