It's hard to believe, but eBay's (NASDAQ: EBAY) stock has actually outperformed the S&P 500 Index over the last 3, 5, and 10 year periods. Keep in mind, a lot of this performance was driven by the faster-growing payments segment led by PayPal Holdings. Unfortunately, eBay no longer own this segment since PayPal was spun-off a few years ago.
Over the last few years, it has been a rough road for eBay to find meaningful growth. eBay's gross merchandise volume (GMV) has barely budged -- moving only from $83 billion to $85 billion. This is while major retail competitors like Amazon.com and Wal-Mart Stores continue to invest heavily in their e-commerce operations, and are growing much faster because of it. However, it's difficult to make the case that eBay is overvalued, with the stock trading at less than 16 times expected earnings. The important question is: Can the company grow enough to satisfy shareholders?
We'll explore eBay's growth initiatives and their success to determine whether investors should go with eBay or look for greener pastures.
Source: Fool.com