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

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (58044)	5/23/1999 9:25:00 PM
From: Sarmad Y. Hermiz	Respond to of 164684

>> is ntbk one of those you won't short due to float? I don't think there is much to ntbk at all. I don't know anything about ntbk. But I don't think tight float is a problem for shorting. Since it has a float of 20 m out of 25 m shares. Of course it is down a lot from the top, so I don't know how stable or not it is around 50. And then there is their growth rate. You have to always be aware of that. But the ones I have shorted so far are amzn yhoo and lcos. At the moment everything is covered for the weekend. Hopefully your prediction will come true and we'll have a spike in the AM to short into. By the way, I remember you were predicting a down May two months ahead.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (58044)	5/24/1999 8:20:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

Experts agree: zero margins won't work By Peter D. Henig Redherring.com May 18, 1999 LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA -- A panel of experts agrees: zero margins is a dog of a business model, and a company like Buy.com will be a loser in the long run. Presenting at Red Herring's own Venture 99 conference, being held this week in Lake Tahoe, California, a panel discussion entitled "Money for nothing (and your chips for free)" -- led by noted Morgan Stanley Dean Witter (NYSE: MWD) Internet analyst Mary Meeker -- considered whether free PCs, zero-margin businesses, and other Web gimmicks hold any long-term value as a new way of doing business. With one exception, the panelists -- who included Kate Delhagen, director with Forrester Research; Eric Greenberg, chairman and founder of Scient (Nasdaq: SCNT); Bill Lohse, CEO of SmartAge; and Josh Goldman, CEO of MySimon.com -- quashed the notion that any business should be operated without even a hint of profit margin, clearly putting to rest the perception that easy access to capital within the VC community or IPO markets gives entrepreneurs the license to lose money indefinitely. Mr. Goldman, the lone holdout for the zero-margin model, defended Buy.com's tactics as a valuable brand-building exercise. "It's going to be more and more difficult to give away free products or services and, like Hotmail, have some sugar daddy come along and buy you for several hundred million dollars," said Mr. Greenberg. "I mean, c'mon, common sense still works." CLOSE THE WINDOW If Buy.com was singled out as the whipping boy of zero-margin businesses, eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) was equally noted as having the most impressive business model on the Web. As Ms. Meeker observed, eBay is the fastest growing retailer in history, yet has achieved that distinction with only 200 employees. The company is now worth more than $10 billion. Likewise, Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) was singled out as an example of just how explosive Web growth can be, with year-over-year revenue growth of 548,911 percent. "Never in my lifetime have I ever written a number that high in terms of revenue growth," said Ms. Meeker. According to her statistics, at least ten pure-play Internet winners now belong to the $10 billion market-cap club. Ms. Meeker noted that this is comparable to the $1 billion market-cap club of two years ago. Such growth belies the fact that the window of opportunity may be closing for most Internet pure-plays. "In 25 percent of the categories, it's already game over," said Ms. Delhagen. She noted that such categories as travel, automotive, and financial were already crowded with brand leaders. "Maybe it's more like game over for half of them." NOT DEAD YET The other issue the panel addressed was the notion that the bricks-and-mortar crowd, who came late to the Web, are already history when it comes to e-commerce. The consensus was that companies like Chase Manhattan (NYSE: CMB), which has 20 million customers, or the Gap (NYSE: GPS), with retail properties like Banana Republic and Old Navy, should not be counted out just yet. In fact, many offline industries still have a tremendous amount of infrastructure in place to leverage onto the Web, regardless of whether Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) ate Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) for breakfast. "I'd still rather stick with Chase, which has 20 million banking customers, than some Internet bank with zero," said Mr. Greenberg. Not that the going will be easy for the bricks-and-mortar community, mind you. Even though zero-margin businesses will likely prove unsustainable, e-commerce entrepreneurs like Mr. Greenberg claim that other business models will emerge to challenge both Amazon.com and Wal-Mart (Nasdaq: WMT) for market leadership on the Web. "With all due respect, this is not a done deal yet," said Mr. Greenberg. "This is still going to be war ... and it's going to be a lot of fun to watch." redherring.com