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

To: majormember who wrote (18853)	9/28/1998 6:54:00 PM
From: OtherChap	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

> Ah' finally some meat.....I show consensus of -.54, are you >saying they will lose less? that alone could re-test old highs. It's very simple. Amazon will lose more money this quarter than it did last quarter, or any previous quarter for that matter. Their revenue is increasing but their losses are increasing faster. Amazon has guided all the analysts lower, from a loss of around 20 cents to a loss of 54 cents. Now, of course, Amazon can report a loss of 51 cents and say "We beat estimates!!" You can bet your last dime that nowhere in Amazons press release will they mention that losses have doubled- they will only mention that total revenue has increased. Of course this is all smoke and mirrors, but Amazon's accountants know for a fact that the average investor doesn't understand how the accounting game is played and so they will continue to deceive the public every quarter, at least until the SEC steps in and puts an end to this "running joke" as one CNBC commentator referred to Amazon. Once accounting and earnings games are removed from the picture, there is nothing holding this stock up. Even KTEL, which had more shorts pile onto it than any stock I've ever seen, eventually collapsed when people realized it was nothing more than a money losing pyramid scheme.

To: majormember who wrote (18853)	9/28/1998 7:03:00 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Skane, <..I show consensus of -.54, are you saying they will lose less? that alone could re-test old highs.> Yes the whisper # is -.48c. Your new here. Its amazing how the thing brings in new blood. Well back to books. <Prodigy, Barnes & Noble Online Unit Plan IPOs, Bolstered by Success of eBay By THOMAS E. WEBER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Two familiar names -- online service Prodigy Communications Corp. and bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc. -- hope to tap investors' hunger for Internet stocks with stock offerings despite persistent skepticism about the IPO market. Prodigy, White Plains, N.Y., filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday to raise as much as $86.3 million in an initial public offering. That followed a filing on Thursday by Barnes & Noble to take its barnesandnoble.com Inc. unit, based in New York, public in a $100 million deal. Turnaround? Total Subscribers19951.1 million1996814,0001997615,0001998638,000 All figures year-end except for 1998, which is as of June 30. Numbers include Classic and Internet services. Source: Company filing IPOs have gone through a dry spell during the market's recent ravages. But last week brought fresh reason for optimism, at least where Internet stocks were concerned. Internet-auction company eBay Inc., San Jose, Calif., launched a dramatically successful IPO. On Wednesday, eBay priced 3.5 million shares at $18, then watched them soar to nearly triple that level when they began trading on Thursday. In Nasdaq Stock Market trading on Friday, shares of eBay closed at $44.875, down $2.50. But eBay had some advantages over Prodigy and barnesandnoble.com. Prodigy and barnesandnoble.com both are losing money, while eBay came to market with small but measureable profit. And while eBay is widely acknowledged as a leader in its category of consumer-to-consumer auctions, Prodigy competes in the crowded online service space and barnesandnoble.com toils in the shadow of online bookseller Amazon.com Inc. Prodigy may face a tough time. Though one of the oldest and most familiar names in the interactive world, Prodigy has fallen far behind rivals. Prodigy was formed in 1984 as a $1 billion joint venture of International Business Machines Corp., Sears, Roebuck & Co. and CBS Inc. It became one of the online industry's largest players, but shrunk in the face of competition from America Online Inc. and other Internet-based services. Prodigy www.prodigy.com Barnesandnoble.com www.barnesandnoble.com CBS dropped out and in 1996, IBM and Sears sold Prodigy for close to $250 million in stock and cash to an investor group including Mexico's Carso Global Telecom, which also owns a controlling stake in Mexico's main phone company, Telefonos de Mexico SA, or Telmex. Now Prodigy, which had 638,000 subscribers as of June 30, is increasingly focusing on its Internet-access business rather than its old proprietary service. According to its SEC filing, it also plans to market Internet services to Hispanic customers in conjunction with Telmex. "Let's put it this way: They're not No. 1 or No. 2," said Ulric Weil, technology analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. "And particularly in the kind of market we're in, you have to be No. 1 or No. 2 to get investors' attention." A Prodigy spokesman declined to comment, citing SEC restrictions. Barnesandnoble.com is seen as the clear runner-up to Amazon.com. According to barnesandnoble.com's SEC filing, the online retailer had sales of $12.5 million for the quarter ended Aug. 1, a fraction of the $116 million in sales Amazon.com reported for its quarter ended June 30. Both online booksellers lost money in their most recent quarters. Barnesandnoble.com recorded a loss of $13.6 million for the quarter ended Aug. 1, according to its filing, while Amazon.com reported a loss of $21.2 million. Barnesandnoble.com couldn't be reached for comment. Underwriters for the Prodigy IPO are led by Bear, Stearns & Co. and BancBoston Robertson Stephens. The barnesandnoble.com offering is led by Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Salomon Smith Barney.> I'll bet William is pissed off, that Morgan Stanley didn't get any of this business.