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

To: KeepItSimple who wrote (30494)	12/19/1998 3:56:00 PM
From: llamaphlegm	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 164684

i'm gonna wretch Unlike most analysts, she doesn't set price targets for her stocks because she doesn't want to be constricted by them. Microsoft, for instance, has risen more than 300-fold since its split-adjusted IPO price of 39 cents a share in 1986. Getting out of Microsoft along the way because it hit some artificial price target would have been a mistake, she says. "Mary realizes that great stocks are rarely cheap," says Russell Grandinetti, a former Meeker assistant and now chief of investor relations at Amazon. "She knows that the one thing about tech investing is that whatever happens next year isn't what you thought would happen. So she wants to bet on the best management teams."

To: KeepItSimple who wrote (30494)	12/19/1998 3:59:00 PM
From: llamaphlegm	Respond to of 164684

hmmmm -- she still loves yahoo, yet is "frustrated" by amzn's inability to prove that its financials work yet -- william - piece of advice -- don't try to bulls--t people who are literate - that one quote sounds a lot like glenn r for the past six months here and not someone who is still bullish on amzn (and as you point out, she's allowed to pimp the stock for the public since the public does not pay her -- unlike you and amzn which will probably need a secondary offering soon) Meeker admits she's been somewhat frustrated that Amazon hasn't "proven that its financial model works." But she says Amazon's critics are missing the big picture. "The point is: Given that the market opportunities are so large, should companies be allowed to lose money to seize the No. 1 spot?" Meeker says for Amazon, the answer is yes. And the stock market clearly agrees with her. Amazon's detractors say it has an outrageous valuation for a company that operates in a low-margin business like bookselling. And now, they scoff, Amazon is moving into an even lower-margin area by selling compact discs, tapes and other music. "The problem is that people may suddenly wake up one morning and say Amazon and other 'Net companies are just retailers and value them at 30 times earnings, not at 200 or 1,000 times earnings," says Michael Murphy, publisher of the California Technology Stock Letter. Jonathan Cohen, Merrill Lynch's Internet analyst, opined last week that Amazon is worth just $50 a share. But that didn't do much to dent investors' enthusiasm. Murphy says America Online's success has done an enormous amount to legitimize 'Net stocks because AOL showed that spending heavily to gain the No. 1 spot can eventually prove profitable. At long last, AOL is now capitalizing on its 14 million subscribers after spending more than $1 billion to build that base. Yet Murphy feels that other Internet companies lack the advantages of AOL, which gets to collect monthly membership fees from its 14 million users. Yahoo trades at an even loftier multiple of earnings than AOL does, but Meeker loves the stock anyway. Her view: "Yahoo's revenue generation hasn't caught up with its importance as an organization." She cites the appeal of Yahoo's 40 million monthly users to advertisers: "Yahoo has cachet as the leading place, the coolest place, the best place."

To: KeepItSimple who wrote (30494)	12/19/1998 4:04:00 PM
From: llamaphlegm	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 164684

william william william if you're gonna pretend that coverage in barron's was bullish this week, then i'm gonna post the actual text from the different articles -- don't buy any books in a real store now, the equivalent of eating that tulip bulb thinking it was an onion in days of yore Perhaps one of the most amazing stories of last week's markets centered around the Amazon.com phenomenon. On Wednesday, the stock rose 46 1/4 points, or 19%, to 289 after CIBC Oppenheimer analyst Henry Blodget said the stock should hit 400 in a year's time. The following day the stock fell 12 1/4, or 4.2%, to 276 3/4, after Merrill Lynch analyst Jonathan Cohen said it belonged at 50. By Friday, the market decided it preferred the optimistic view of life and Amazon.com shares rallied 9 15/16 to 286 11/16, up 28% on the week. Investors might want to consider a third factor. In November, Jeffrey Bezos, the online retailer's chief executive, sold 180,000 shares at prices ranging from $126.93 to $129.92. True, he still owns millions of shares. However, by selling in November he did give up $160 a share, or $28.8 million in potential profits. And he must have a pretty good idea what his company is worth.