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

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (139788)	2/24/2002 10:14:23 PM
From: H James Morris	Respond to of 164684

Despite a dip in prices last week, the value of gold is still outstripping gains in stocks. Gold has risen 6 per cent since the start of the year. The ASX-200 has been flat. Analysts have pointed to both the demand and supply side of the gold market to explain the renewed activity. AME Mineral Economics gold analyst Andrew Puller said nervous investors had been returning to physical gold and gold-based securities in the wake of recent corporate collapses. Earlier this month gold broke the psychologically important $US300 per troy ounce level. Such a price surge looked highly unlikely as recently as December when the market was struggling to attain 2001's average price of $US271 per ounce, the lowest annual average since 1978. In AME's annual gold cost report, Mr Puller said demand for gold jewellery had also proved resilient, down only an estimated 2 per cent last year in spite of the deteriorating economic climate. On the supply side, changing patterns of production and continued rivalry between major gold miners have again aroused investors' interest and stimulated industry dynamics. And with some strength returning to prices, production costs for producers continue to come down, Mr Puller said. According to AME figures, cash costs of gold production averaged $US156 per ounce last year, down 2.5 per cent from 2000. This is forecast to fall even further, hitting just $US136 per ounce by 2006 as older high-cost mines are closed and new low-cost operations open. The industry-average cash cost was $US160 an ounce in 2000 and, while the rate of cash cost decline has slowed in recent years, AME said average cash costs had fallen by 27 per cent in real terms since 1997. With gold losing 18 per cent of its value between 1997 and 2001, the AME report shows how producers need to contain costs to stay profitable. Of the four major gold-producing nations, the US is still the lowest-cost producer with an estimated average cash cost of $US161 per ounce last year, down 12 per cent since 1997. The remaining three - Australia, Canada and South Africa - have also seen their cash costs fall, although they have also reaped the benefit of a weakening currency against the US dollar. AME said the Australian dollar had lost 30 per cent of its US dollar value since 1997 and its average cost of production had fallen in real terms by 32 per cent. The most striking contributor to lower costs has been the emergence of gold producers outside the big four countries. In 1990 only 25 per cent of gold came from operations outside Australia, Canada, South Africa or the US. By the end of 2001 this had risen to 43 per cent, Mr Puller said. smh.com.au

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (139788)	2/24/2002 11:13:09 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

For a brief period in Internet history, Amazon.com transformed itself into one of the most active corporate venture capitalists -- pumping more than a quarter-billion dollars into about a dozen dot-coms. During a 14-month stretch from early 1999 into 2000, the Seattle online retailer invested in almost one Internet start-up per month as it signed deals with drugstore.com, Pets.com, HomeGrocer.com, Living.com, and others. Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos explained the strategy to investors at the 1999 shareholder meeting by saying "there is so much Internet opportunity that now is the time to invest." But many of the investments still haunt the online retailer. In the company's 2001 annual report, Amazon said it expects "additional equity method losses in the future" because some of the e-commerce companies it invested in may not succeed. Last year, Amazon.com recognized losses of $44 million on these investments, the report said. Even though the online retailer was burned badly playing the venture game, it is still on the prowl for investment opportunities. But this time the deals are nowhere near as high-profile (in some cases Amazon.com doesn't even announce them). And they also don't come with hefty price tags. In the past three months, Amazon.com has bought assets of failed e-tailers such as Egghead.com and OurHouse.com. Last week, it signed an agreement to receive visitor traffic from San Francisco-based Switchouse, a defunct online swapping service for consumer goods. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Typing in the Web site addresses of the three Internet sites now redirects visitors to Amazon.com. In the case of OurHouse.com, shoppers end up in Amazon.com's hardware store. Former Egghead.com shoppers are whisked into the Amazon electronics store. Those visiting the Switchouse Web site are greeted with this message: "We've appreciated your support at Switchouse.com, and we'd like to recommend Amazon.com to all our former buyers and sellers." Scavenging for customers and other assets left behind by bankrupt or failed companies is nothing new. Several corporate vultures are circling around the fiber optic networks left over by bankrupt telecommunications companies. A California online grocer bought the customer lists of HomeGrocer.com and The Webvan Group in October. Heck, even in the Enron mess some of its business units have been sold off. Amazon.com, which has survived longer than most Internet companies, now has the advantage of looking over the dot-com scrap heap and determining whether there are any deals available. Company spokesman Bill Curry said Amazon will continue to buy other bankrupt or struggling Internet companies "where it makes sense and the price is right." "There have been Web sites that even though they have not succeeded as businesses, they have built up reputations and brands and loyal customer followings," Curry said. "This presents an opportunity for us to ... introduce more people to the Amazon.com shopping experience." Asked about how the strategy differs from the multimillion-dollar investments Amazon made during the heyday of the Internet boom, Curry said "it is a different environment today." But there are obvious differences -- the biggest being price. Amazon.com paid just $6.1 million in cash to buy Egghead's assets out of bankruptcy court. Compare that with the $60 million sunk into Kozmo.com March 20, 2000, or the $30 million invested in WineShopper.com. Dave Barry, an editor with The Corporate Venturing Report, said the disparity between Amazon.com's investments of three years ago and the most recent asset purchases are pretty amazing. But they simply indicate the changing times, he said. "After the dot-com period deflated all of the venture capital firms ran away saying, 'We didn't do Internet companies. We didn't do Internet companies,'" Barry said. "With Amazon there was no running, they definitely invested in Internet companies. Those investments were really reflective of the time." At this point, Barry said many of Amazon.com's equity investments from 1999 and early 2000 have been written down. "I don't think it is necessarily biting them," he said. "(But) I am sure there are some regrets that they made those investments." With some established online brands still floating on the market, Barry said it may be a good time for companies like Amazon to pick up other assets. Given that, Barry thinks Amazon's current strategy makes sense. "It is a little less risky proposition than paying $30 million for a 30 percent stake in a company," Barry said. "If they only knew then, what they know now." seattlepi.nwsource.com

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (139788)	2/26/2002 8:25:58 AM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

07:16 ET Amazon.com CEO sells biggest stake ever (AMZN) 13.73: The Wall Street Journal reported that CEO and founder Jeff Bezos accelerated his selling of AMZN stock this month, unloading 2.95 million in Amazon shares valued at about $36.2 mln during the first week of Feb. That exceeded Mr. Bezos's share sales for all of last year in both total number of shares and dollar value of shares sold. A co spokesman said Mr. Bezos's recent stock sale was part of a share-selling program intended to diversify his investment portfolio, and that the Feb share sale amounted to less than 3% of his AMZN holdings.