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

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (12624)	8/5/1998 11:43:00 AM
From: Rob S.	Respond to of 164684

<I wonder if the long shareholders will ever wise up.> Maybe not until the VCs and insiders have cashed out several hundred millions. My guess is that the VCs and Bezos' management team have figured that they can continue to balloon sales as they build up debt and dilute the stock until sales growth becomes more difficult. I think that they have 2-3 quarters of fairly rapid sales growth left. Despite this quarter's sales growth number coming in at up only about 5% over last quarter (a marked deceleration from previous levels) they can point to the seasonally strong Christmas/winter buying season to keep speculators outlook euphoric. The fact that sales growth is rapidly decelerating will be lost on the speculators until it slaps them in the face - something I estimate will happen next year as Amazon's competitors continue to gain momentum, the market becomes saturated (overall internet growth will continue but as new users come on, they will be split among competitors), and price competition lowers margins even further. Maybe this qtrs' slack growth will finally register. This stock is not logical. It has all the signs of being controlled. After all, Bezos comes from the financial industry - no doubt expert in behind the scenes arms-length maneuvering. The objective is clear - buy rapid growth at the cost of hundreds of millions, control the float to drive the stock price, then slowly filter shares into the market through lucrative third party transactions and insider sales. We haven't seen Bezos selling a lot of his shares yet - that would be a confirmation. This is speculation based on "this picture just doesn't add up".