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

To: uptick who wrote (16362)	9/7/1998 3:52:00 PM
From: uptick	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Top Fund Managers Find AMZN management "slick" and "knows how to tell a good story". [The below article was part of an interview with the Kaufman Fund managers - Its average annual return over those 10 years was 26%, compared to the S&P 500's average of 18.9%. The fund's cumulative return over that period was 906%--almost double that of the S&P 500 index. AMZN's down 40% since interview. From Money, September, 1998 ...Amazon. com, one of the hottest stocks of the past year, also failed to impress. After making a slick presentation, the company refused to answer detailed questions, citing concerns about confidentiality. Says Joy Covey, Amazon's CFO: "The last thing we want to do is provide a road map for our competitors." The attitude, Utsch rails, was, "You've got to trust me." Kaufmann has shorted this stock too, which has doubled since the fund bet against it. Still, Utsch remains convinced that it'll plummet: "It now sells for a higher valuation than Borders and Barnes & Noble combined." This attitude of aggressive skepticism has been key to Kaufmann's success. "In some cases it creates real animosity," says Larry Marsh, a director of equity research at Salomon Smith Barney. "I've seen situations where CEOs turn red in the face and sputter answers. The ones who tell a good story but don't run a good company tend to react the worst."

To: uptick who wrote (16362)	9/7/1998 4:04:00 PM
From: uptick	Respond to of 164684

About the "Junk" Ratings S&P recently assigned AMZN senior bonds [I think S&P was being generous about the ratings. Most analysts and even companies officials expect AMZN to bleed red ink well into year 2000] Standard & Poor's recently assigned its single-'B' rating to Amazon.com's $530 million 10% senior discount notes due 2008. At the same time, Standard & Poor's assigned its single-'B' corporate credit rating to the company. According to S&P, the ratings reflect the company's negative operating cash flow and rapid growth in an evolving marketplace. This necessitates high levels of investment in technology, logistics and marketing, and the potential for heightened competition... Management is committed to aggressive expenditures on marketing and product development. Standard & Poor's expects this strategy will keep the company from realizing positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization at least through 1998, as it focuses primarily on market share rather than profitability over the near term.