Operator]

Our next question comes from David Joseph with Morgan Stanley.

David Joseph - Morgan Stanley

Yeah hi. I think I am going to ask the first question a little bit differently, and you might have just addressed this a little bit but your fourth quarter guidance implies a decline in revenue of about 4% at the midpoint of your year versus 11% growth implied in the prior guidance. And given that you reiterated guidance in the beginning of September, it sounds like there was significant weakness in September, which is in line with what we’ve been hearing in retail across the board but wondering if you could tell us, talk to us a little bit about the linearity and what you’ve even seen in October. And then just assuming that GMV declines again in the fourth quarter, maybe you could give us a sense of what we should expect for 2009 -- should we just start modeling a decline in GMV in 2009 as well?

Robert H. Swan

David, in terms of kind of sequential growth rate, Q3 grew by 12% in our implied guidance and Q4 has us at about minus 4%. And I would characterize maybe three things primarily that are impacting that -- one is clearly the third quarter was impacted by a strengthening dollar and a weaker economy but in the latter part of the quarter. So, as the dollar strengthened quite a bit towards the end of the quarter and we had the full effect in the fourth quarter, the economy weakened quite a bit in mid-August and for the rest of the quarter and the combination of those two things are making the growth deceleration or growth from Q3 to Q4 that much tougher.

The third thing I would add is, as John indicated we are going to in a tough consumer spending environment, we are going to be spending more on sales and marketing, particularly in coupon related expenditures and that will impact the revenue growth as well.

And I think I would like to say I wish there was a lot more clarity in -- at least in my crystal ball on what’s going to transpire over the critical holiday season for us but honestly, there’s not and as a result, as you can tell by our guidance, the range that we gave you in the quarter is a lot wider than it normally is at this time just because -- just a reflection of -- you know, just the uncertainties we see in the consumer spending environment.

Mark Rowen

Operator, we have time for one last question.

Operator

And our last question comes from Scott Devitt with Stifel Nicolaus.

Scott Devitt - Stifel Nicolaus

Hi. Thank you. I guess at today’s close, your market cap is above $20 billion and you have about $3.6 billion of cash and short-term investments, and the Company spent $5.3 billion in buy-backs over the past couple of years at about $30 a share. With your free cash you are going to generate in 2008 and an S&P like dividend payout, you could have a 4% or 5% dividend yield. So I was just wondering if there was any change in the Company’s perspective in terms of returning capital to shareholders via the existing buy-back versus a dividend in the future. Thanks.

Robert H. Swan

Thanks Scott. You know, we end the quarter, you’re right, with $3.3 billion in cash. As you know, the reality of that cash is about $400 million sits here in the U.S. and the rest of it offshore, so the inherent flexibility we have to use our strong balance sheet and our strong cash flows here domestically has a pretty severe tax rate penalty associated with it. So that’s a constraint that we have to deal with.

Secondly, you also realize that with the acquisition of Bill Me Later and the relatively low cash position we have here in the U.S., as we will be using both our cash and available financing, including our line of credit to finance that transaction and in a sense we’ll have borrowings here in the U.S. post the completion of that transaction.

And then third, and from a more macro perspective, I would say we always look at our inherent capital structure and the best way to maintain our financial flexibility to invest and grow while redeploying our capital to shareholders, and we’ll continue to do that.

Mark Rowen

Okay, thank you for joining us and we’ll see you in 90 days.