eBay finished Monday morning up 5.5%, changing hands near $118.20 — about a dollar under its 52-week peak — after Morgan Stanley ranked it first among the internet stocks it covers.
The bank held its Overweight rating and moved the target up $5 to $132. Analyst Nathan Feather's team argues the market never understood why eBay's momentum was building. Their answer: livestreamed selling, which they estimate sits behind more than two-fifths of the marketplace's merchandise-volume growth this fiscal year. What was once a fringe format has ballooned into a $27 billion US market in barely two years, and Morgan Stanley sees it compounding at about 22% a year through 2030 — enough, in their math, to add roughly four points of yearly GMV growth all the way to the decade's end. Four points on its own nearly matches what consensus currently expects for total volume expansion, which is why the bank calls the estimate a margin of safety.
The engine is stranger than it first looks. Citing survey data, the note says around four in five live buyers list the items back for resale. Every stream becomes a restocking event: sold goods return to the marketplace, get bought again, and get sold again, pulling fresh buyers into fashion and collectibles along the way. That self-feeding loop is why Feather treats live commerce as the missing piece of eBay's growth rather than a one-quarter boost.
Margins get their own paragraph. Morgan Stanley believes profit expectations have hit their floor after a heavy investment cycle — the Depop purchase included — and now maps a route to persistent double-digit earnings growth with a richer valuation multiple attached. At Monday's price the shares carry a trailing multiple near 22.5 times earnings on a market value of roughly $50 billion, and they are already up 35.7% since January with 11.1% tacked on in the last five sessions.
Why it matters
The old eBay story — sleepy legacy marketplace, outmaneuvered by retail-media giants — does not survive this note. A 5.5% single-day gain on an analyst upgrade, pushing toward the 52-week high, shows how quickly the perception is flipping. The $132 target implies about 11.7% more upside from here, and the four-point growth contribution through 2030 would compound while rivals fight over logistics. Not everyone agrees: Wells Fargo cut its own target to $91 on the same day, kept an Underweight rating, and put its fiscal 2027 earnings estimate 8% below consensus, blaming heavy Live and resale-platform spending plus rivalry with secondhand app Vinted. The $41 spread between the two banks is among the widest in large-cap internet. The backdrop adds tension too: internet stocks have been lagging the Nasdaq on AI capex worries, and yields near 24-year highs with the Fed still hiking are no help to discretionary spending.
What to watch
- Third-quarter results — the next hard read on whether live commerce keeps accelerating.
- GMV mix — whether the live-driven share of growth holds through the holiday quarter.
- Margin delivery — evidence that profit expectations have genuinely bottomed after the investment cycle.
- The $41 analyst gap — the $91-to-$132 range snaps shut fast once Q3 numbers print.
MarketRadar take
This is a stronger call than a routine target lift. Morgan Stanley is not claiming eBay is cheap — near 22.5 times trailing earnings and a dollar off its high, it plainly is not — it is claiming the market misdiagnosed the growth. The flywheel argument is testable: if the live share of GMV keeps climbing into the holiday quarter, the $132 case compounds. Wells Fargo's caution carries real weight, though. Live and C2C spending must convert into earnings rather than just volume, and Vinted is contesting the same resale corner. Momentum favors eBay, but the spread between the two banks says the next print picks the winner.
