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To: JDN who wrote (35150)	9/10/2000 7:41:11 AM
From: QwikSand	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

JDN: Thanks for the response, it addresses the issues I had. I am still left with some discomfort based on, among other things, this portion from near the end of the article: Wall Street analysts who follow Amazon all told Barron's that they're sufficiently savvy to make rational use of both pro forma and actual numbers. But style can be as important as substance, even among the most rational crowd on Wall Street. In a study published in July's Accounting Review, Indiana B-school professor Hopkins showed 113 buyside analysts a set of financials that differed only in that one version used "pooling" accounting and two other versions did not. The more attractive pooling treatment caused analysts to place higher valuations on the company's shares. Analysts are only human, notes Hopkins. They're also extremely busy and therefore influenced by pro forma packaging that makes their job easier. Think again about Wall Street's uniform adoption of Amazon's pro forma EPS. The article wasn't alarmist about general replacement of GAAP numbers by ProForma numbers in Wall Street scrutiny, and in fact seemed to favor it overall. It still left me with the feeling that the "judgment" that you refer to is sometimes hasty and incomplete and leaves analysts putting out unreliable projections for companies. Thanks again. --QS