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To: mike.com who wrote (36054)	12/29/1998 7:11:00 PM
From: Teri Garner	Respond to of 119973

News from MSNBC on AMZN - Revenues could double... msnbc.com THAT'S THE WORD ON THE STREET. Amazon was so busy this Christmas season that programmers, managers, even CEO Jeff Bezos spent the last few weeks on the front lines packing boxes. The 33-year-old CEO's hardhat work was glorified both by The New York Times and USA Today in recent stories. But investors have been wondering just how busy has Amazon been? Add to that Monday's report from The Boston Consulting Group and Shop.org that Holiday shopping was up 230 percent over last year, and the spectulation of a blow-out quarter soared as fast as Amazon stock. There are persistent rumors in Tech stock chat areas that Amazon's revenues will way overshoot its $154 million third quarter, even overshoot analysts' predicted 30 percent increase to $180-$200 million for the fourth quarter. The rumors have spread to analysts, who have not raised expectations but are now speculating quietly that Amazon's fourth quarter might bring in double the expected $180 million in cash. “We have it on good authority that AMZN is so overwhelmed with holiday orders that it is having difficulty fulfilling them all,” one person, quoting analyst Dalton L. Chandler of Needham & Co., wrote in the online stock discussion bulletin board Silcon Investor. Chandler could not be reached immediately. “The company did $154 million in revenue in the third quarter with no apparent capacity restraint. How big would this quarter have to be to cause difficulty getting product in and out of the warehouse fast enough? $300 million? $500 million?” But these are more than rumors now, according to Credit Suisse First Boston's Lise Buyer, who was on the optimistic end and expected $198 million from Amazon this quarter. “Current estimates look way too low given what an immense online shopping season this has been,” she said. “It's not impossible that the estimates could be low by 50 percent.” Rumors of skyrocketing revenues partially explain Amazon's 150-point rise this month, said Buyer. The remarkable run included a 46-point jump on Dec. 16 alone, and another 32-point one-day spike five days later, after Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analyst Mary Meeker said Internet stocks still had room to grow in a Barron's article. Meeker wasn't immediately available for comment, but her estimate for Amazon's revenues this quarter remains at $192 million. Buyer said that despite the run-up, rumors of explosive revenues haven't been completely priced into the stock, and she expects another bump when Amazon releases earnings at the end of January. And what if Amazon, which has been losing money since it launched in 1995 (90 cents a share in the third quarter) and is expected to lose 46 cents per share this quarter, manages to turn a profit? Buyer says that's possible, but not likely, because she expects the company spent aggressively on marketing this quarter. “Though you could argue they couldn't possibly have spent that much,” she said. “It certainly will make the loss smaller than expected.” Even if Amazon manages to turn a profit, Buyer warns that this quarter is an aberration, and Amazon investors should be ready to see negative quarters going forward for quite some time — at least two years, most analysts say. What does the company say about all this? It won't comment on fourth-quarter revenue expectations, but did say orders on the day after Thanksgiving were four times greater than orders on the same day last year. Were they really as busy as rumors suggest? You bet, says public relations director Bill Curry, who spent time in the warehouse packing books like everybody else. How many books? “Between Nov. 17 and Christmas Eve we shipped enough books, CDs and videos that if you stood them up on shelf on a shelf, the shelf would stretch 101 miles,” Curry said.