EBay pares sharp gain, dismisses Google stake talk

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of EBAY (EBAY.NQ) were up but paring earlier sharp gains on Friday after a company spokesman said eBay has had no conversations with Google about acquiring a stake in the company.

The stock jumped as much as 4.7 percent in heavy volume earlier. U.S. and Europe-based traders had cited rumors that Google was taking a stake in or buying eBay.

EBay shares were last up 2.5 percent on volume of more than 29 million, double the 10-day moving average volume of about 14 million. Shares of Google were down 0.7 percent.

The overall market had cut losses thanks to the gains in eBay, which is still among the biggest positives on the Nasdaq and S&P 500.

Options volume on eBay Inc also was up, spiking to 3.1 times normal with 123,000 calls and 35,000 puts traded as of 11:44 a.m. EDT on Friday, according to data from options analytics firm Trade Alert.

EBay shares are down more than 6 percent for the year so far. The stock fell nearly 7 percent in the previous three sessions following Apple's announcement of the Apple Pay mobile payment service, which analysts viewed as a threat to PayPal, eBay's online payment service.

(Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Nick Zieminski)

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