Stock Upgrades, Downgrades from TheStreet.com Ratings

Each weekday, TheStreet.com Ratings updates its ratings on the stocks it covers. The proprietary ratings model projects a stock's total return potential over a 12-month period, including both price appreciation and dividends. Buy, hold or sell ratings designate how the Ratings group expects these stocks to perform against a general benchmark of the equities market and interest rates.

While the ratings model is quantitative, it uses both subjective and objective elements. For instance, subjective elements include expected equities market returns, future interest rates, implied industry outlook and company earnings forecasts. Objective elements include volatility of past operating revenue, financial strength and company cash flows.

Online auction site eBay(EBAY Quote) has been downgraded to a hold. While the company has enjoyed a largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels, robust revenue growth and good cash flow from operations, it has also been plagued by deteriorating net income and disappointing return on equity.

For the third quarter, the online auctioneer said it lost $936 million, or 69 cents a share due to a writedown in the value of its Skype Internet phone division. Excluding the writedown and other items, eBay earned $564 million, or 41 cents share, up 53% year over year. Revenue increased 30% to $1.89 billion, trailing the industry average of 56.2%. Current return on equity is lower than its ROE from a year ago. eBay had been rated a buy since September. ...