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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brasco One who wrote (106489)	7/26/2000 4:03:51 PM
From: NOW	Respond to of 164684

Couldn't happen to a nicer company. Almost time for a short term bounce here... Reuters Finance News Amazon Hit by String of Bad News By Scott Hillis Jul 26 3:56pm ET SEATTLE (Reuters) - Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) saw its share price drop nearly 10 percent on Wednesday after its president abruptly quit, its stock got downgraded and its Web site crashed. All that came just hours before Amazon, a bellwether for the entire online retailing sector, was to report quarterly earnings that analysts will scrutinize for signs that the company is moving toward profitability, or not. Shares in Amazon fell 3-3/8, or 9 percent, to 34-1/2 on Wednesday in mid-afternoon trading on the Nasdaq ahead of the company's second quarter earnings announcement due after the close of trading. The spate of bad news started on Tuesday afternoon when Amazon President Joseph Galli, who was with the company just 13 months, suddenly resigned to become the chief executive of VerticalNet Inc (VERT.O). Then, two brokerages, Banc of America Securities and Lehman Bros., downgraded Amazon shares. Banc of America analyst Tom Courtney on Tuesday cut Amazon to a ``buy'' from a ``strong buy'', and withdrew his price target of $80 a share, saying he would revise that after the earnings announcement. ``Over the past two months, we have lost some confidence in the company's ability to generate the growth necessary to meet our estimates,'' Courtney said. ``Although we will continue to believe Amazon is by far the No. 1 company in this space and believe its long-term model will prove out, it simply cannot afford to miss even the upper end of the range of estimates,'' Courtney said. On Wednesday, Lehman analyst Holly Becker, painted an even grimmer picture of the company and said she was ``throwing in the towel on Amazon'', expressing frustration with its attempts to expand beyond its core bookselling business into areas like hardware, kitchen supplies and toys. ``To justify current valuation, the company must expand beyond books, and to date the company's new businesses have demonstrated a lack of traction,'' Becker wrote. ``Despite its powerful brand name and large, loyal customer base, there is softness in key consumer metrics,'' Becker said. ''Near-term execution risks are substantial as Amazon works to aggressively reduce costs while continuing to grow at rapid rates.'' Becker cut her rating on Amazon to ``neutral'' from ``buy''. With Internet retailers across the board coming under increased pressure to turn a profit, analysts will be looking to see if Amazon's latest financial results show it is stemming the red ink and improving margins and cash flow. Last month, another Lehman analyst, Ravi Suria, cast fresh doubts on Amazon's business when he described its credit as ''extremely weak and deteriorating,'' and forecast the company would run out of cash within a year. The comments, which Amazon dismissed as ``hogwash'', sparked a steep sell-off in the company's shares, which hit a 52-week low of 32-7/16, far below its peak of 113. Amazon was also stung on Wednesday when its online store crashed for a short time. Customers who tried to visit the Web site, at amazon.com, were presented with a message saying the store was temporarily closed. The notice did not give a reason for the closure. An Amazon spokeswoman said the site was down for about 40 minutes until 10:20 a.m. PDT (1:20 p.m. EDT/1720 GMT), adding that it was not caused by a hacker attack or outside interference. ``It was just a mild hiccup with the system and we a have addressed it,'' she said.