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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Clarke who wrote (11028)	7/30/2000 10:21:18 AM
From: Madharry	Respond to of 78517

What is Quest for value? Comments re amzon: 1. What you say about amazon is true but it is probably also true for IM a much cheaper company. 2. Personally, I believe that that small business will have to fight back. a local bookstore had a wonderful Harry Potter party prior to the book going on sale at midnight. I took my son and he loved it. 3. I have a moth problem. I researched it on the internet was going to buy it on the internet but objected to paying a processing fee on top of a shipping fee. so I ended up purchasing it at a local hardware store and bought it at the same price without a processing fee and without having to wait. 4. My anecdotal conclusions are that it will be tough making money on the internet in terms of consumer sales unless the product being offered is unique or can be offered so that the consumer actually saves money and or time. Amazon has yet to convince me that they will a return on equity with their model, that is acceptable to me. And considering what their present book value is that will have to be quite a lot.

To: James Clarke who wrote (11028)	7/30/2000 11:16:49 AM
From: Michael Burry	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78517

OK, so it's contrarian, but it is also one of the most visible, over-analyzed stocks by pros and amateurs alike. Where's my advantage in understanding Amazon.com? Quest for Value's an interesting book, but I still don't see the margin of safety in an option, at least as I define a margin of safety. More likely, a diversified portfolio of these sorts of companies may indeed provide the few rockets that offset or more than offset the ones that go to zero. So you then have a margin of safety in the portfolio. But I don't see the margin of safety in an individual Z, precisely because you are projecting based on many assumptions that have no fundamental basis in past reality, and because you do not have infinite time for the security to come around - after all, it is an option in that regard. And in Amazon.com's case, a debt-laden one at that. Mike

To: James Clarke who wrote (11028)	8/1/2000 2:04:52 PM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78517

James, I have no clue about Amazon. I've just noticed that most investors either swear by it or hate it. The one thing I'm sure of is that there IS a profitable business there if they want it. There are many times that I don't feel like going out and spending lots of time driving to the book store, browsing etc... I'm busy. I'd rather point and click. For that priviledge I am willing to pay a premium price. I am certain there are LOTS of others just like me. To become profitable Amazon would only have to figure out what expenses they have that book retailers (super stores etc...) do not. And then on the flip side, what expenses they do not have vs. book stores. Then if they must charge a premium for my purchase and convenience, I am fairly certain it isn't enough to offset and hour of my time, gas money, multiple visits because they don't have it in the store etc... I will still buy it from Amazon on those days. Once they do that, the bigger their volume the less the premium must be. (maybe after a time they can do it cheaper???) I realize this is a simplistic view of complicated matters (that I don't understand.) However, there's no doubt this company CAN make money. All they would have to do is change their vision from grand success to making money. If the current vision turns out to be correct they will make a lot of money. If not, they will shrink and make some money. There's a place between going under and owning the world that some investors forget about. Wayne