"Better look now because Ebay, like a long distance runner, has got its second wind"

Dow Jones Industrial Average   12,273  (UP)  Week ending 02-11-2011

My brother will be miserable after he reads this blog. He has held ebay (Symbol EBAY, $34.50) stock for years and years and finally dumped it in January this year. It appears that the stock went crashing through its upside technical resistance line this week, like Harold Abrahams exploding thorough the tape at the finish line. Harold of course is the  Olympic champion in 1924 in the 100 meters sprint, a feat depicted in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire.

If comparing ebay to that infamous 1924 British Team of Olympic runners in Paris, then certainly ebay's PayPal franchise is the Eric Liddell of this ebay team. Eric often called the "Flying Scotsman", after the record breaking locomotive, could run really fast. At a certain point in the race Liddell would deploy an unorthodox running style as portrayed in the film. He would put his head back and have his mouth wide open and would burst into a whole new gear, speeding ahead and becoming unbeatable at that point. PayPal is about to go into this new gear of accelerated growth in revenues.

Assistant managing editor, Paul R. La Monica of CNN Money reported that, " Shares hit a more than 3-year high on Thursday. Chief executive officer John Donahoe of ebay boasted to analysts that revenue from PayPal could more than double from last year's totals to as much as $7 billion annually by 2013. If that happens, PayPal's sales could soon eclipse the revenue that eBay's bread-and-butter auction sites generate."

Ebay has lots of other stuff going on right now also. Ebay Motors, Rent.com, Half.com, StubHub, Bill Me Later, Tommmy Hilfiger direct sales, a minority ownership in Skype.


So if you are like me and cannot afford to buy stock in Mastercard (Symbol MA, $253 per share) from my Freewilly's recommended 2011 Top Ten List, this is probably a good way for you to invest in a financial transaction business.

Ebay's numbers look like this according to analysts:

Average earnings estimate per share for 2011 is $1.74 per share and for 2012 is $1.94 per share. The 12 month Total Return has been 49.9%.

Eric Liddell, born in China while his parents were doing missionary work, had worked with the China Inland Mission as a missionary from Scotland after the Olympics. In 1943 he was held by the Japanese who had taken over the mission and he continued his work there. Later, in 1991, a memorial headstone for Eric Liddell, made from Isle of Mull granite and erected by Edinburgh University, was unveiled at the former Mission and Internment camp site in Weifang, China.

A few simple words taken from the Book of Isaiah 40 :31 form the inscription on his memorial:

"They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary."

So add some ebay to your portfolio this week and grab some popcorn and pick up a DVD copy of the movie "Chariots of Fire" to watch, and become a true champion in your financial race.

Freewilly