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

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (14665)	8/26/1998 12:25:00 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Bill, nice timing. Gonna daytrade those 500 AMZNs? Sold the few YHOO puts I had this morning as well. For a way too small profit, but it sure beats a loss and the selloff (the market or the internuts) this morning just wasn't convincing. FWIW, I'm thinking trading range for the market until we all get something new to worry about. Russia, in an economic sense, just doesn't matter that much. Need more clues about where our own economy and corporate earnings are headed. Also need a little time for complacency to build again. BTW, anyone notice that AMZN rallied right after OtherChap admitted he might have been bluffing yesterday?

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (14665)	8/26/1998 12:25:00 PM
From: Jan Crawley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

I don't know what else to say. I bot/sold 100 shares against the box twice in the last 20 minutes for $250 gain..just think that everyone is trading Amzn only!

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (14665)	8/26/1998 1:21:00 PM
From: craig crawford	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

>> Dell is essentially a PC manufacuring company. << Amazon is essentially an overpriced, short-squeeze driven, internet hype, money losing company.

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (14665)	8/26/1998 2:22:00 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Respond to of 164684

Dell is essentially a PC manufacturing company. Bill, you make it sound so dull.:-) Actually, what is different about DELL and AMZN is not that one is a manufacturer and one is not. The difference is that one has a business model that works and one does not. What makes DELL so successful (measured by real financial results, not by it's stock price) is less a result of how well they build boxes and more a result of how they sell them. Of course it's important that they maintain quality of product and service and keep up with technology, but their products are hardly unique and DELL is not a developer of cutting edge technology, but a packager of it. Marketing and super fast inventory turns. But, that was supposed to be AMZN's advantage too, wasn't it? Now, AMZN is opening distribution centers so that they can carry more inventory and, as they grow, they keep moving breakeven farther and farther out. Could it be that their commodity products are just not suited to an online selling model? Shipping costs are much larger in proportion to the sales price of the products they sell, requiring heavy discounting just to match conventional channels. Costs of marketing, i.e. obtaining and retaining customers, are also very high relative to the revenue from those customers (compared to bigger ticket items like PCs); and, the cost of processing an order eats up a bigger chunk of the revenue from that order. In short, IMO, PCs are well suited to online sales while books and CDs are not. Of course, AMZN can keep looking for a business model that does work. Maybe, one day, they will find one.