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

To: H James Morris who wrote (36364)	1/24/1999 3:01:00 PM
From: tonyt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

>>>No one is expecting a profit<< >Of course not, but what the bulls are looking for is less losses. They already said that 'The higher sales won't reduce Amazon.com's loss for the quarter' (#reply-7112225) >Anyway it won't affect the stock price too much. Agreed. >I'm still betting on a secondary by the end of the year. >Not only can you trust me on that. You can take it to your local bank. Not unless the stock corrects (crashes) to $25. No way a secondary could be priced above $100. Cash will be raised, but by a private issuance of convert's or more junk.

To: H James Morris who wrote (36364)	1/24/1999 5:03:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

I'm still betting on a secondary by the end of the year. Not only can you trust me on that. You can take it to your local bank. This is my guess also. The equity markets are funny. Once there is momentum and excitement, it last a long time. It was close to a year ago now that I short AMZN. I was always bearish on the fundamentals. My argument was profitability was impossible no matter how large the sales volume. The analysts and bulls stated that Amazon had the "perfect" business model. They would not need to carry inventory. They received their money from sales prior to paying for the inventory. Their costs of doing business would be much lower since they did not have to pay high rents for brick and mortar stores. The reason for the losses then were two fold. One was they did not have economy of scale so their cost of goods sold would go down with economy of scale. I promise they will not go down further. Actually, fulfillment cost turned into being variable which is no surprise to me, but the argument then was their fulfillment was more efficient. Amazon was to turn a few cents per share profit in Q4 of 99. No expects that. In fact, fundamentals have worsened. They won't show in the coming numbers for Q4 of 98. The new distribution center had not been leased as of then nor the payroll to staff it,etc. This will show in the results of Q1 of 99. Analysts will then be revamping losses to be larger for 1999 and 2000 and possibly 2001. The stories to explain the Amazon business model will no longer be on the efficiency of the model. In fact, we almost never hear that now. The focus will be on a database which is likely no better than the database of any portal. I really doubt AOL wants to work closely with AMZN. AOL plans on a good part of their revenue to be coming through a percentage of sales done through their content shopping area and their web page. AMZN is now becoming more of a competitor. AMZN is out of the AOL picture in Europe and likely will be be out in the US when the web site license expires. AOL's "tenants" sold about a billion dollars of merchandise in Q4 of 98. The merchandise was more diverse than that of AMZN. AOL likely had a good database on these sales. They will not share with AMZN in my opinion. If a big player had a desire to do serious etailing on the web, whom would they pay for a database? My guess is AOL. AMZN has burnt the cash from the IPO, the cash from the junk bonds and it appears that the equity markets will be willing to supply more money through a secondary. What has AMZN created with this equity that is gone? Technology which is no better than others. The very wealthy are all insiders or venture capitalists. Some long term bulls on the stock but that will end with others who will have losses. AMZN has succeeded to speed up the elimination of the independant bookseller by the use of burning equity markets capital. I wonder what those owners and employees are doing now. I see AMZN as a company that has done a lot of damage to a good many people that worked hard for a living. Has AMZN improved the lifestyle of the average person in the US or elsewhere? I doubt it. What has been created with this equity from the capital markets? I can find hardly nothing. I can see a lot of damage that has been done to small business owners in books, music, etc. Also, the owners of buildings from which they leased. Also, the employees of both firms. Glenn