CTC, As for analysts, I have to vote for incompetent. Remember, these are the same people who just noticed that IBM was deducting capital gains from their SG&A costs after they'd been doing so since 1994. I don't really think that competence counts any more in the analytical community. The job is to get the banking business and churn the customers' accounts. Yes, there are many honest, competent analysts out there, but they are very much in the minority and very likely not to be employed if they do not bend with the wind.
I don't see any point in Amazon's business plan where a profit becomes likely. The competition and cutthroat pricing will never go away. True, they may be able to cut costs by restraining capital spending, but you simply cannot sell products forever below their cost to buy, after all rebates, etc. However, when a company has a hot stock, their chances of some day posting a profit improve greatly. After all, it costs them nothing to raise money from the public and they may eventually just put that money into T-Bills and kick out enough interest to show a profit. But, for some reason, I don't think the buyers really want to own an investment growing at T-Bill rates. <g> |
