Ryan Cohen has spent the summer pursuing eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY).
Prediction market traders doubt management will even say his company’s name tonight.
eBay reports second-quarter earnings after the bell today, with the call at 5:30 p.m. ET.
Polymarket gives the company a 96% chance of beating earnings, but the more interesting action is on Kalshi, where traders are betting on which words CEO Jamie Iannone and his team will say.
Analysts expect adjusted earnings of about $1.50 per share on revenue of roughly $3 billion. The stock is up roughly 25% this year and has risen about 180% since Iannone took over in 2020.
What Kalshi Predicts eBay Will Say
"Dividend" is at 97%. eBay returned $639 million to shareholders in the first quarter through $139 million of dividends and $500 million of buybacks, equivalent to about 71% of its $898 million in free cash flow.
“AI” and “International” both trade in the mid-90s, standard fare for a 2026 earnings call.
"Goldin" is at 90% after jumping 31 points, with "Sneaker" at 74% and "Pokemon" at 73%.
The cluster matters because eBay’s enthusiast-focused categories helped drive 14% currency-neutral GMV growth last quarter even as its active-buyer base increased only modestly.
Goldin, the eBay-owned collectibles auction house, recorded its highest-ever quarterly GMV, helped by the $16.5 million sale of a Pikachu Illustrator card.
“Bullion” is at 65% and poses the same question.
High gold and silver prices temporarily boosted first-quarter GMV, and management warned volumes should normalize in Q2. Tonight should show whether that acceleration survived as bullion volumes normalized.
What Kalshi Predicts eBay Will Skip
“OpenAI / ChatGPT” trades at just 31%, despite eBay already working with OpenAI and management discussing the partnership last quarter. Agentic shopping remains a potentially disruptive question for marketplaces whose advertising businesses depend on shoppers searching directly on their platforms.
“Etsy” sits at 27%. Traders do not expect eBay to name its rival.
“GameStop” trades at 26%. GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME) owns 43.4 million eBay shares, a 9.8% stake, and the board rejected Cohen’s nonbinding $125-per-share proposal, half cash and half GameStop stock, valuing eBay near $56 billion.
A separate Polymarket contract gives GameStop just a 13% chance of acquiring eBay by year-end, on roughly $2.4 million of volume. Traders don’t expect the deal to close, and they don’t expect management to say the name either.
Reading the Board
Kalshi’s numbers market is more bullish than management.
Traders currently forecast roughly $22.2 billion of second-quarter GMV, comfortably above eBay’s $21.3 billion to $21.7 billion guidance and its 8% to 10% currency-neutral growth target.
The active-buyer base, meanwhile, has increased by only 2 million since the end of 2022, to 136 million.
Strong GMV and buyer growth would weaken Cohen’s argument that eBay spends too much for too little user growth. A slowdown or cautious guidance may hand him his best opening yet.
Kalshi and Benzinga have an existing data collaboration agreement.
Image: Shutterstock
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