Whatever's going on in the market or a specific company's history, there are always reasons to consider buying shares in a business. After all, some of the best opportunities in stocks are born from historically bloody times.

Motley Fool CAPS hosts a boatload of opinions from more than 120,000 members on nearly 5,400 stocks, each providing good reasons to own -- or sell -- a stock.

In the case of Internet commerce firm eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), a total of 3,738 members have given a bullish or bearish opinion on the company. Scouring the detailed information packed in pitches and other comments on eBay, here are three of the top reasons to buy the online auction maestro today:

1. Untapped potential
eBay's core auction business may be considered mature, but its ventures into PayPal and Skype are still early in their cycle, and becoming more important to future growth. Skype is the global chat leader, with 370 million users, while Paypal had a 19% increase in active registered accounts in the third quarter. Though Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) continues to snub PayPal, the electronic payment facilitator's wooing more top merchants to accept its payments, including Wal-Mart's (NYSE:WMT) website and Continental Airlines (NYSE:CAL).

2. Leading brand
eBay's huge customer base is a strong competitive advantage, helping the business overcome tough market swings and even poor business decisions. The company is still projected to grow significantly, with a long-term growth estimate of 13.8%. Many CAPS members are willing to overlook gaffes that have angered some of the site's highest revenue-generating sellers.

3. Loads of cash
Like cash kings Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), General Electric (NYSE:GE), and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), eBay pulls in massive amounts of free cash flow and has plenty of money in the bank. In bleak times, this cash cushion lends the company ample flexibility that rivals lack, giving eBay better odds to snap back from any economic downturn

Of course, there's a lot more devilry in the details of these buy-side opinions. That's why CAPS is such a great resource to check and balance your own analysis. You can read the bullish and bearish sides to every stock. To see what the very best CAPS members are saying now about eBay, click on over to Motley Fool CAPS and have a look -- it's all free, and your opinion's always welcome.

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