Parent and spinoff have gains ahead

Article Excerpt

Dear Client: In July 2015, eBay spun off its PayPal business as a separate company. eBay investors received one PayPal share for each share they held. Share prices for both have jumped since the spinoff. That’s mainly because each is now focused on the expansion of its main businesses. Both eBay and PayPal should continue to profit as more and more consumers shop and pay bills online. EBAY INC. $37 (Nasdaq symbol EBAY; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.1 billion; Market cap: $40.7 billion; Price to-sales ratio: 4.4; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ebay.com) operates e-commerce websites where sellers pay fees to auction new and used items. The company also lets retailers sell merchandise at fixed prices. That helps it compete with Amazon.com. Right now, 88% of eBay’s total transactions are sales of items at fixed prices. eBay launched its first auction website in September 1995 and now has 171 million users worldwide. The company also operates several other websites, including…