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

To: Tom Kearney who wrote (45127)	3/11/1999 2:19:00 AM
From: Tom Kearney	Respond to of 164684

From today's Motley Fool Evening report.... fnews.yahoo.com .....According to Mauboussin, Barnes & Noble produced around $150 million in cash earnings for the twelve months ending October 31. Yet, this retailer invested about $245 million net in long-term assets (like new stores) and working capital (like books to stock the stores). The result was FCF of negative $95 million. Barnes & Noble has operated with negative FCF every quarter since it went public. By contrast, Amazon delivered negative cash earnings of $58 million in FY98, but negative FCF of just $4 million overall. That's because it costs a lot less to scale an online store once the major infrastructure is in place. You don't have to spend a lot on construction, leases, and inventory. Also, Amazon pays its suppliers long after it gets paid by its customers, meaning that customers and suppliers are funding Amazon's working capital, as fellow Fool Dale Wettlaufer has pointed out repeatedly. So Amazon generated a $54 million inflow of cash investments that nearly wiped out the negative $58 million in cash earnings last year. FCF scoreboard Amazon -$4 million Barnes & Noble -$95 million . . .