Analyst sees robust sales growth for Amazon, eBay

Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc. saw "robust growth" in the first seven days of December, with eBay helped by sales of holiday gift items that were sold out elsewhere and Amazon seeing strong third-party sales, a Jefferies analyst said Friday. The analyst, Youssef Squali, said sales have improved at both online retailers when compared with last year, as measured by a key retail indicator. He said that sales at online stores that have been open at least a year grew 20.4 percent at eBay from Dec. 1 to Dec. 7 compared with last year at that time. Squali cited