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

To: Alomex who wrote (124076)	4/24/2001 8:41:56 PM
From: The Reaper	Respond to of 164684

They're gonna start printing their own $100 bills with Bezos' grill on them. If they start now, they'll have $900 million by Dec. kirby

To: Alomex who wrote (124076)	4/24/2001 8:59:24 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

As per the conference call Amazon expects to finish Q4 with $900 million in the bank. This would imply accounts payable of over 70% of sales. This makes no sense... any guesses about how they expect to achieve this without issuing new debt? Alomex, I have no guesses. I can't reconcile their numbers. I still can't from Q1. I believe we are going to see a lot of jouralists and maybe the analysts (if they want to really do their job) asking a lot of questions the next few days. The margin improvement makes no sense. Also, if vendors are not having a problem with Amazon's working capital, why did payables as a percentage of sales, fall? The shows a weakening of the negative cash flow model so highly touted. I would think Amazon would want to string out payables if the vendors permit. I really would like to ask management questions and know I will never have the chance:-(

To: Alomex who wrote (124076)	4/24/2001 9:10:15 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

19:16 ET ****** Amazon.com (AMZN) 15.68: Shares of Amazon are bidding up modestly in the late session after the Internet retailer reported a net loss which was lower than consensus expectations. Specifically, AMZN's loss came in at $0.21 EPS versus analysts estimates of -$0.24 EPS. First quarter revenues of $700 million also edged past the consensus estimate of $683 million. These results were not entirely a surprise however, as the company had pre-announced first quarter guidance that tagged sales at $695 million with an operating loss of $0.22. As for the forward outlook, AMZN widened its revenue range for both the upcoming quarter and the full year. This is typically done in lieu of lowering prior projections. Management now anticipates second quarter gross margins in the 23%-26% range which means they're building in the prospect of a sequential drop (first quarter gross margins were 26.1%). While first quarter results beat consensus expectations, Briefing.com believes this is a case where the results look better than they have in the past, but not good enough. On the positive side, AMZN did show signs of running a tighter ship. Fulfillment expenses dropped slightly year on year in the face of revenues which increased by 22%. Put more simply, AMZN is now spending less to process more orders. Similarly, marketing expenses dropped by 9% which means less money out of pocket per dollar of revenue generated. On the sales side of the equation, orders from repeat customers edged higher to 78% of total orders versus 76% in the year-ago period. Repeat business is important for AMZN, as it's increasingly reliant on a reliable customer base rather than trial customers from outside growth. On the conference call, Bezos spent quite a bit of time discussing the Amazon platform and the potency of this platform for use by other businesses. Co-branding alliances had been shunned by AMZN in the past, but the Amazon/Borders relationship (announced this past quarter) has been seen as a step forward for the company. Positives aside, it was difficult to come away from this conference call with the impression AMZN is a screaming buy. Management was less than forthcoming regarding such metrics as Internet traffic conversion/retention rates and average order size. While management expects to turn cash flow positive in the fourth quarter of 2001, we're still left with little guidance as to when this subsequently translates into actual earnings. Earlier today we commented on AMZN as follows: "If the shares should rally on today's news, we expect it will be short-lived and suggest a sideline view of the action." Nothing in tonight's conference call has caused us to alter our opinion. -- Michael Ashbaugh, Briefing.com

To: Alomex who wrote (124076)	4/24/2001 10:20:43 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

It is quite an operation as you are pointing out<G> But that is what it says in their own press release. They charged their equipment upgrade to Linux in their impairment related charges. Moving your computer equipment to Linux (or from Windows 2000 to Windows XP for that matter) is part of day to day operations and not an impairment charge in any sensible meaning of the word (not than sensible and GAAP have anything to do with each other).... I should point out that it is not uncommon to bury all bad things in a restructuring charge....

To: Alomex who wrote (124076)	4/25/2001 10:38:09 AM
From: Alomex	Respond to of 164684

As per the conference call Amazon expects to finish Q4 with $900 million in the bank. This would imply accounts payable of over 70% of sales.... This makes no sense... any guesses about how they expect to achieve this without issuing new debt? It seems to me that Amazon expects to burn through another $150 million over the next two quarters. This would give them net cash (excluding accounts payable) of $250 million. Assume sales of $1.2 billion, with accounts payable of 50%, or $600 million for Q4. So from that they would have $850 million in the bank. Given their current expenditures it seems reasonable to forecast $45 million in net profit in Q4. All in all they would end Q4 with $895 million. Of course this is assuming that their cash projections hold true (in the past they have missed the mark a few times).