The company is selling 125 million shares of Adevinta
E-commerce giant eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) is in the spotlight today, after the company agreed to sell 125 million shares, or 10.2% of its stake of global online classifieds specialist Adevinta to private equity firm Permira for $2.25 billion in cash. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021. At last check, EBAY is up 2.2% to trade at $70.27 in response.
eBay stock is now a chip-shot from its July 1 all-time high of $70.76. Year-to-date, the equity is up 39.8%. Despite the solid price action, there is still plenty of room for upgrades amongst the brokerage bunch. Of the 17 analysts in coverage, 11 carry a tepid "hold" rating. Meanwhile, the 12-month consensus price target of $70.09 is in line with current levels, indicating the equity is ripe for bull notes.
Puts have been more popular than usual, too, leaving plenty of pessimism to be unwound in the options pits. This is per the security's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.85 that sits in the 90th percentile of its annual range, meaning short-term options traders have been more bearish than normal.
Fresh out of the gate this morning though, calls are being picked up at double what's typically seen. So far, 3,090 calls and 1,006 puts have crossed the tape, with the weekly 7/23 70-strike call seeing the most activity.