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

To: Smart Investor who wrote (37164)	1/27/1999 1:18:00 PM
From: The Freshmaker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Gross margins don't matter -- Amazon.com said its fourth quarter gross margins were 21.1 percent of sales, down from 22.7 percent. Increased discounting and sales of music curbed margins. Officials on a conference call said gross margins don't matter and are likely to fall as the company adds new products Profits -- Listening to Bezos you would think profits would be the worst thing that could happen to Amazon.com. "We will continue to resist the temptation to prematurely shift our focus," said Bezos, referring to the lure of being profitable. Amazon.com could sell ads to boost margins and profits, but it won't. "Every pixel on the site goes to promoting Amazon.com products," said Covey. Making money for Amazon.com is an all or nothing game. You either grow the business and report big losses -- and they will get bigger -- or you make gobs of money. How big does Amazon.com have to get before it figures it is allowed to make money is anyone's guess. One thing that isn't bizarre about Amazon.com is that its stock is not for the weak. "Amazon stock has been extraordinarily volatile," said Bezos. "It should be only a small fraction of any individual investor's portfolio. And it shouldn't be any fraction of a short-term trader's portfolio." Source: ZDII