Shares of eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) hit a 52-week high recently. Let's look at how it got here and whether clear skies are ahead.

How it got here
The iconic online auctioneer started off the year with a somewhat mixed fourth-quarter earnings release. Some of the strength in the results was tied to its acquisition of GSI Commerce last March, while eBay also enjoyed a big one-time gain on its majority stake in Skype, as software giant Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) decided to pick it up. Its PayPal division continued to drive its organic growth.

PayPal faces a slew of small start-up competitors, the most threatening of which is Square, a company that's been taking the mobile payment world by storm. PayPal's polygonal response to the threat was a triangle-shaped payment-processing dongle, which was launched in March.

Just a few weeks ago, the company posted a strong beat in first-quarter results, sending shares jumping by upwards of 17%. It's been trending higher ever since.

How it stacks up
Let's see how eBay stacks up against some of its peers.

EBAY Chart

EBAY data by YCharts.

We'll include some additional fundamental metrics for a deeper read.

Company

P/E (TTM)

EPS Growth (5-year rate)

Net Margin (TTM)

ROE (TTM)

eBay 16.2 14.3% 26.8% 19.2%
Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) 190.5 25.0% 0.9% 7.7%
MercadoLibre (Nasdaq: MELI) 55.6 161.0% 25.7% 39.3%

Source: Reuters. TTM = trailing 12 months.

All three of these companies are players in e-commerce and payment processing. MercadoLibre has long been casually referred to as the "eBay of Latin America" -- and for good reason. The two don't compete thanks to a strategic alliance from more than a decade ago, which resulted in eBay investing in MercadoLibre while agreeing not to compete in the region until 2006.

Amazon has been focusing more on media and content sales lately and its Web Services cloud business, while eBay's goods are typically of the tangible variety.

What's next?
Mobile payments are the next big thing for eBay, and its PayPal brand is a well-known player in the space that continues to gain momentum with its network effects. Our own CAPS community has given it a solid four-star rating, and it's long been an official Fool recommendation. eBay has plenty of room to run.

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