Forex Marketz Daily Forex News – Fully Markets Update
Earnings season is upon us. Numbers are coming in and its time to talk about some of them. E-commerce giant eBay (EBAY: Nasdaq) just reported their results and they were mixed, to say the least. They also announced they were laying off nearly seven percent of their labor force, or 2,400 jobs. This comes as the company is splitting off its PayPal and eBay into two separate and publically traded corporations.
During the company’s conference call, as well as in an interview with the New York Times, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Bob Swan said this year would be really “challenging” and it will be getting “worse before it gets better.” The company also announced, that they had reached an agreement with Carl Icahn, who owns the most shares of the company to appoint Jonathan Christodoro to sit in the board. There were three new nominations in total to the board of directors. Two coming from eBay’s nominations and one from Icahn.
Quarterly Profit Numbers are Not so Great
eBay reported fourth quarter earnings at ninety cents per share. This was up from the third quarter number of 81 cents. Their revenue number was higher at $4.92 billion. The previous revenue number came in at $4.53 billion from a year ago. Sales were pushed higher thanks to PayPal’s mobile payments and better than expected holiday sales. Consumers are spending more online than they are in box retail stores like Macy’s.
What did the street expect? Expected revenue and quarterly earnings were at 89 cents at $4.93 billion in revenue. So the e-commerce giant missed, coming in lower than expected. eBay also forecasted quarterly revenue of between $4.35 billion and 4.45 billion and the street expected $4.7 billion. For the full year eBay is forecasting earnings to come in at $3.05 to $3.15 per share. Revenue should come in at $18.6 to $19.1 billion.
However, after the announcements, and mixed bag of numbers, shares of eBay moved lower only to jump higher in after-hours trading, up nearly 3.5 percent.
Headwinds and Fierce Competition in 2015 for the Company
The company will face serious competition from other online retailers like Amazon (AMZN: Nasdaq) and Alibaba (BABA: NYSE). Even more than what they have been seeing up and until now. They are also getting competition from internet giant Google (GOOG: Nasdaq). Also coming up this year will be the eBay and PayPal split into two separate public companies, and the impending resignation of the company’s CEO. John Donahoe will resign once the split is completed.
Throughout 2014, share price for the company was all over the place. It managed to close up $3.14 per share for the year. The company was an underperformer in the Nasdaq for 2014, rising a mere 0.4 percent. The Nasdaq Composite was up 11 percent in 2014.
