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* Faster pace of growth at Marketplaces division expected* GMV, ex-autos, seen rising 14 pct in US — analystBy Alistair BarrSAN FRANCISCO, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The performance of eBay Inc’s main Marketplaces business will dominate results from the e-commerce company later this week.EBay has been working on a turnaround of its online marketplaces for over a year and growth has begun to pick up in recent quarters.EBay shares are up more than 20 percent so far this year, but further gains will depend on growth continuing, or even increasing, analysts and investors said.”Continued acceleration at the core eBay Marketplaces will be of paramount importance,” said Fred Moran, an analyst at Benchmark Capital.EBay’s Internet marketplaces, the biggest of their kind, bring together buyers and sellers and the company makes money by charging fees on transactions and other activity.The marketplaces business started as an auction website, but eBay has moved away from that model and now about 60 percent of sales are fixed price.Having more fixed prices has made eBay’s marketplaces more accessible to a broader audience of shoppers, helping the company compete better with Amazon.com Inc , the world’s largest Internet retailer.”The transition to fixed-price has paid off and enhanced the growth rate,” Moran said. “If that continues in the third quarter, the stock should be rewarded.EBay is expected to report earnings of 48 cents per share on revenue of $2.91 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The company is due to unveil results after the stock market closes on Wednesday.When eBay reported second-quarter results in July, the company forecast third-quarter revenue between $2.85 billion and $2.95 billion and earnings of 46 cents to 47 a share.EBay also forecast full-year revenue of $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion in July and profit of $1.97 to $2.00 a share.A closely watched metric will be the Gross Merchandise Volume, or GMV, that changed hands on eBay’s marketplaces, excluding vehicle sales.”How people react to the earnings will depend on how much GMV has been transacted,” said Bill Smead of Smead Capital, which owns eBay shares. “We expect not spectacular but steady improvement there. EBay is participating in the growth of e-commerce, while a few years ago they weren’t.”Justin Post, an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, is expecting U.S. GMV growth of 14 percent in the third quarter, versus a year earlier. But growth could be as high as 16 percent, he noted.The focus on fixed price sales makes eBay a much more effective destination for holiday shopping, while the company has also reduced clutter on its website and improved cataloging and search functions, according to Post.

With an age difference of over 30 years, the duo had a magical courtship in the 1960s that eventually gave way to the dark side of Grant after they were engaged. Following three years of marriage and not long after the birth of their daughter Jennifer, the couple divorced and Cannon suffered a nervous breakdown.Cannon, now in her early 70s, sat down with Reuters to talk about her former late husband and what she’s learned about love over the years.Q: Why focus the book just on your years with Cary?A: “I’ve been offered so much money over the years to write a kiss and tell, which this is not. I wanted this to be a helpful book, an inspirational book. It’s really about the little things that happen in our relationships that tear us asunder, so I felt people would benefit from most of this.”Q: Is there an underlying message you wanted to relay?A: “One of the biggest messages is that it is wonderful to love and to serve and to give. It’s wonderful to try and make people happy, but it’s impossible to do so.”Q: What was the biggest challenge in writing this book?A: “I know how people feel about Cary — they love him. I didn’t want people to lose the stars in their eyes about him. I wanted people to love him more at the end of this book than they did before. This book humanizes him. They’ll understand what formed him. And I had such compassion for what formed him. But I also suffered a breakdown. So balancing all that was my biggest challenge.”Q: There must have been a lot of stories to sort through.A: “I didn’t know what to put in and what to leave out. The first (draft) was so out of balance. The second time around it started to take shape. The third time I thought, ‘Maybe I’ve got it now.‘“Q: Cary was a big proponent of LSD use and wanted you to do it with him. But for you it was a disastrous experience. Do you think Cary had a drug problem?A: “Absolutely not. With specificity, no. He thought LSD was his gateway to God, to peace, to that turmoil that wouldn’t leave him alone. He thought it helped him, but I don’t think it did. If it did, it gave him a peace that enabled him without being tormented 24 hours a day.”Q: Were you able to have a friendship after the divorce?A: “We were polite.”Q: Was it hard getting your career back on track afterward? Did studio executives have to choose sides?A: “Maybe some people for a moment. But Mike Frankovich was a good friend of Cary’s. He was the head of Columbia Pictures and he chose me for ‘Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice’ (which earned Cannon an Oscar nomination). So no, not really.”Q: When Cary passed away in 1986 at the age of 82, did that affect you at all?A: “I was amazed at how I mourned him. I couldn’t believe how hammered I was by his death, how deeply I felt his loss. I loved him so dearly, but some of that love had to get pushed down through all the pain.”Q: Was he the greatest love of your life?A: “I’ve known a lot of wonderful men. I’ve known a couple of jerks. And I think the best is yet to come (laughs). I do. Because I understand love now. That’s why I can say I’m a whole, satisfied, complete woman. But up to now, I’ve certainly had no experience with anybody like I had with Cary. I loved him and he loved me. I was the only woman in the world that he trusted enough to have a baby with. That’s a big deal to me.”Q: Your daughter, Jennifer, has a three year-old son, Cary Benjamin. Do you see traits of Cary in her or in little Cary?A: “More with the grandchild. There’s traits in Jennifer that remind me of Cary — wonderful traits. But the little guy, he’s something else!.”Q: Will you write another book to encompass all the other aspects of your life?A: “I’m not sure about writing another book. I’ve had offers but writing a book is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’d like to write and perform a one-woman show with other people as a part of it. I’ve talked to a friend of mine, we’re contemplating it and I’ve made a lot of notes. But as far as a second book about my career and things that happened to me? I’m not motivated to do that.”

ECB Governing Council member Erkki Liikanen stressed, however, that the euro zone’s central bank was in no way pre-committed to cutting rates when it meets in November.Last week, the ECB opted to keep rates on hold at 1.5 percent despite some of the bank’s policymakers calling for a cut amid signs the euro area economy is deteriorating further and as Greek default fears weigh on the markets.Euro zone inflation jumped to 3.0 percent last month. Several ECB policymakers have said they expect it to ease below the bank’s target level of just under 2 percent next year — a view echoed by Jozef Makuch, Slovakia’s central bank chief.”I expect inflation to drop below 2 percent next year,” Makuch said. “Negative gross domestic product can’t be ruled out if downside risks materialize.”The ECB said in its October monthly bulletin, released on Thursday, that downside risks relate especially to financial market turmoil. It also saw energy prices, protectionism and global imbalances as downside threats to growth.Makuch’s views on the economic outlook echoed comments from Austrian central bank chief Ewald Nowotny, who said earlier this week the euro zone economy risks a protracted period of weakness while inflation is not a worry.But Liikanen said risks to stable prices are still balanced.”Risks for inflation …. are on balance,” Liikanen, who is also governor of Finland’s central bank, said in Helsinki. Asked about a possible ECB rate cut, he added: “We have no pre-commitment, we’ll discuss that in November, next time.”INFLATIONJose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo, another ECB policymaker, said central banks must be unwavering in their determination to keep inflation at bay.”The role of a central bank under any circumstances, and in crisis times in particular, is to inflexibly pursue its main objective, which in the ECB’s case is price stability, and to perform as a key anchor of stability,” he said.Berenberg bank economist Christian Schulz said that despite the hawkish comments on inflation from some ECB policymakers, he expected the bank to cut rates by 25 basis points in December or January, and by the same amount in March.The ECB’s hawkish policymakers are often more vocal than those who take a more dovish view of inflation, and the hawks may feel a need to assert their opinions ahead of a change in leadership at the bank next month, when Italian Mario Draghi will replace Jean-Claude Trichet as ECB president.“‘Balanced’ is quite a hawkish view at the moment,” Berenberg’s Schulz said of Liikanen’s comments. “As always you have the hawks and some pragmatists. I think at the moment the pragmatists are clearly in the majority.”Liikanen said Europe’s banks must become stronger.”It is very important that they have better capital ratios, more capital (put in) by the investors. And if that is not possible, then states must also be ready,” he said. “We must be ready so that if there are banks which are not solvent, they will be restructured.”Europe’s debt crisis has deteriorated in recent weeks as uncertainty over Greece’s future has increased. On Wednesday European Commission’s President Jose Manuel Barroso called for decisive actions to limit the damage the debt crisis is inflicting on the economy.”We can avoid a situation which deteriorates. The key issues are really to implement decisions taken,” Liikanen said, welcoming the announcement by Slovakia — which has held up approval for strengthening the euro zone’s rescue fund — of a deal to vote it through.Slovakia’s opposition leader said on Wednesday his party and the outgoing government coalition had agreed to ratify the EFSF rescue fund by Friday.