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

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (108665)	9/20/2000 4:54:40 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

>SEATTLE, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Shares of Amazon.com Inc. <AMZN.O> dropped 7 percent on Wednesday after a company presentation to investors drew a ho-hum response from Wall Street analysts. Disappointed investors, who had hoped an annual pitch by Amazon's top brass on Tuesday would buoy the company's sagging stock price, sent shares down $2-3/4 to $38 on the Nasdaq. Amazon stock, which hit a year high of $113 last December, touched a year low of $27-7/8 in July amid increasing doubts among analysts over whether the company will ever make money. "There were probably some people yesterday who were disappointed because they wanted to hear more," said Adam Hamilton, an analyst with Seattle-based brokerage McAdams Wright Ragen. "Before these meetings you sort of expect some really big announcement ... but invariably there's almost nothing," Hamilton said, adding that he felt the meeting was "positive". "They did a good job perhaps of giving people a better look under the hood. In certain respects one would've liked to see more in terms of improvements," Hamilton said. "It was good disclosure but not as much as you might expect." Despite promises by executives that Amazon would boost operating margins, cut costs and better manage its inventory, major Wall Street brokerages stuck to existing ratings. Henry Blodget, a Merrill Lynch analyst who once famously predicted that Amazon's stock would hit $400 a share, kept his "accumulate" rating, citing "the deceleration of revenue growth and lack of visibility into long-term profitability." Amazon, seen as a bellwether for the online retail sector that as a whole is struggling to prove it can spin profits, saw its losses grow 40 percent to $115 million last quarter, while revenues grew 84 percent to $578 million. But the pace of revenue growth is slowing, and some are questioning Amazon's strategy of expanding into new product lines such as patio furniture, kitchenware and even cars. Amazon shares fell about 5 percent on Tuesday as investors worried about the impact of Amazon's decision not to renew a contract to be a preferred merchant on popular Internet portal Yahoo! Inc. <YHOO.O>. However, brokerage Goldman Sachs said it viewed the Yahoo news as a "non-issue" since sales racked up through Yahoo amounted to only 1.5 percent of Amazon's total. Among other analysts, PaineWebber's Sara Farley maintained the firm's "neutral" rating and $30 price target, saying she was concerned about Amazon's "future scale through revenue growth" and squeezed product margins. J.P. Morgan's Tony Wyman sounded more bullish, saying that the booming growth of electronics sales showed Amazon could succeed outside of its core book business. But Wyman didn't raise the company's rating, keeping it as a "buy" and holding price targets of $60 by Christmas and $90 over the next 12 months. Bonnie Tonneson, of Chase H&Q, was also encouraged by the electronics sales. She held her "buy" rating and raised her 12-month price target to $55 from about $37. Other positive developments included a new partnership with Toysrus.com to run an Internet toy store, and the launch of an Amazon Web site in France, Tonneson said. But he warned that a "wild card" was the company's ability to improve its financial results in the fourth quarter. 15:53 09-20-00