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Strategies & Market Trends : Roger's 1998 Short Picks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Westermeyer who wrote (16606)	1/6/1999 3:24:00 PM
From: clochard	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18691

Buying goods and services online canabalizes other means of selling and will result in lower margins overall. Much of the spending is discretionary and will eventually dry up due to oversaturation. No one is willing to pay even a penny for Yahoo. Look at television. The "free" channels have turned into so much noise, and people looking for something interesting rent videos. I can find a cheaper version of any "service" or just cut them off with a mouse click.

To: Don Westermeyer who wrote (16606)	1/6/1999 3:26:00 PM
From: Mama Bear	Respond to of 18691

If y'all must short the big names why not think about buying some BEARX? AMZN and DELL were among the top 10 shorts when they last released that info. The best thing is you can't lose more than you put into it. The only way to short in a qualified account of which I'm aware. prudentbear.com prudentbear.com By no means take this as an endorsement of shorting the big names. I don't own any BEARX. I will continue to pick off the weak and disabled stocks like ZITL, ENML, and FIBR when they run up. I've even been going long AMZN this week. Why not? They're giving away free money. When the time comes it will be plain to see, just as it was with IOM(G) and ZITL. Barb

To: Don Westermeyer who wrote (16606)	1/6/1999 6:02:00 PM
From: RealMuLan	Respond to of 18691

This is from Briefing.com: 14:50 ET****** AMAZON.COM (AMZN) 137 +12 1/2. In response to questions about what Amazon's preliminary release of Q4 results really means, Briefing.com takes a closer look at the issue. According to the online book/music/video/electronics... retailer, 4th qtr sales will rise more than 350% from the year-ago period to $250 million. Based on analysts' estimates of Amazon's top-line results for the period, that figure is about 40% above consensus expectations. As for the issue of operating performance, Amazon does not expect the surge in sales to lead to a correspondingly lower net loss for the quarter. What the company is essentially saying is that they sold more product, but paid the price in gross margins. The company also experienced an increase in expenses associated with its attempt to ship as much product as possible by Christmas day. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to determine what effect the aggressive product pricing or higher fulfillment costs will have on the bottom-line this quarter. But there appears to be little doubt that when Amazon releases earnings on January 26, it will report a decline in gross margins from the Q3 level of 22.7%. Analysts are currently projecting a Q4 loss of about $0.54 a share, more than double the company's year-ago loss.In many eyes, yesterday's announcement by Amazon is being perceived as an "earnings warning," which is why the stock initially sold-off on the news. But even if Amazon misses its quarter, it is very unlikely that you will see any negative comments made by analysts. Instead, they will quietly adjust their estimates to reflect expectations of a greater loss and continue to only speak of the positives. Why would we make such an assumption? Because we've seen it before -- each time that Amazon has reported disappointing results or given indications that it will slide deeper into the red.