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

To: craig crawford who wrote (14421)	8/23/1998 6:47:00 PM
From: llamaphlegm	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

I know, bulls, I know -- this too is good news. Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: Watch Out Amazon, BKS.com's on Its Way By James J. Cramer Can you buy puts on Amazon.com (AMZN:Nasdaq) and make money? I have been loath to play any Internet name to the short side because I am a true believer. Hence TheStreet.com. But I nibbled on the October put paper Friday because of the Barnes & Noble (BKS:NYSE) deal. Here's why. I love Amazon.com. I haven't been to a bookstore since I got my account. I think I will always love Amazon.com. I have never been confused by the notion that Amazon.com has a giant market cap. It is a loved stock and it cannot be borrowed. (See my piece last time on what this means and why I can't short Amazon common.) If you are reading this piece at night, I have probably just been to Amazon and would have joined you for a virtual cup of coffee in the military history aisle. But this Barnes & Noble initial public offering will change the Amazon stock for the worse, not the better. Because the BKS people are crafty and know the game. When the roadshow for this IPO starts, even Amazon holders might be panicked into selling. Here's why. First, Barnes & Noble will visit 12 cities and speak online about how great Amazon is while speaking off line about what a loser Amazon.com is. You don't want someone out there going around the globe knocking your stock. But it will happen. Second, BKS has no desire to hurt itself with an online business, but it wants to CRUSH Amazon, as any good competitor would. By off-loading BKS.com it will have a vehicle that can really put it to Amazon on a price basis with the expected losses being broken out to its BKS.com sub. It is almost in BKS' interest for BKS.com to do poorly. In that it can hurt Amazon, which is taking huge online market share, without damaging parent BKS' buzz. Third, BKS.com's IPO and subsequent stock will be like a giant ad fest for BKS.com. I suspect that anybody who does not know BKS.com will have heard of it by the time this deal comes public. Finally, the creation of BKS.com might be just big enough to alleviate some of the short squeezes are occurring in Net stocks. If you go back and read my piece about how there are not enough Net stocks, I predicted that the bankers would have to create a ton of new equities before you could see a top in this group. Looks like the bankers are listening. Can you own BKS.com for the long haul? Tough question. These IPO spinouts of retailers from other retailers tend to be real dogs in the long run. Most recently we have been hit by the ugly Carmax (KMX:NYSE) stick. But price it right and anything can work. I made good money on the Kmart (KM:NYSE) spinouts and got takeovers when Kmart ran into such trouble that it had to raise cash.

To: craig crawford who wrote (14421)	8/23/1998 6:48:00 PM
From: OtherChap	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Cramer takes short position in Amazon! It's the lead story on his website. He states that he has taken up a position in the october puts... and this guy is almost disgustingly positive on EVERY internet stock. For him to suggest Amazon is in trouble could cause this stock to plunge deeply on monday. At the very least, it will cause the MM scammers to dump those large blocks of shares they bought last week that drove up the call prices and killed the august puts. Remember what caused netscape's stock to collapse? Microsoft entered the browser market and was willing to accept losses in its Internet Explorer division in order to crush Netscape. It worked, and netscape stock plunged more than 70%. Now it seems that Barnes and Noble is going to do the exact same thing to Amazon. This quote from thestreet.com spells it out: *** By off-loading BKS.com it will have a vehicle that can really put it to Amazon on a price basis with the expected losses being broken out to its BKS.com sub. It is almost in BKS' interest for BKS.com to do poorly. In that it can hurt Amazon, which is taking huge online market share, without damaging parent BKS' buzz. *** For once, I agree with Cramer. Amazon has nowhere left to go but down.