Ebay, Citibank & Skype

Citibank, the nation's largest bank,lost $9.83 billion in the last three months of 2007. Yes you read it correctly, $9.83 billion and that is in US Dollars. As you recall a while back Mark Mahaney the analyst at Citibank downgraded Ebay as he mentioned that Google's checkout was going to be giving Paypal tons of problems and Mark wasn't too pleased with Ebay's acquisition of Skype. Lets see Mark, your firm lost $9.83 billion that is more than 3x what Ebay paid for Skype and SKype is growing and contributing to Ebay's bottom line. My question is this, if we went back in time and Mark recommended to his peers, "Hey lets stay out of this sub prime business and lets buy Skype instead"; he would be lauded as a genius. The front page of the Wall Street Journal would read "Citibank sticks it to peers, steals Skype, and stays clear of Sub prime Mess". "Mark Mahaney writes "Skype is one of the best VOIP servers in the market, I as a brilliant analyst saw the sub prime crisis coming and notified my firm to stay clear of the mess. Instead of losing 10 billion we spent 3 billion to purchase a company that is producing earnings." My point is this, do not listen to these idiots on the Street. They are the same ones manipulating the price of Ebay's stock and selling because they are running out of funds and need all the cash they can get their hands on. They try to scare individual investors into selling their stock so their traders can purchase it cheaply. Isn't it a coincidence how Mark liked Ebay a few months back(after his traders had scooped up the shares at a cheap price). Know they are probably dumping the stock to pay off their sub prime mess.

Hey Citibank wouldn't you love to have used some of your billions in losses to have acquired Skype??????