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

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (59957)	6/2/1999 12:58:00 PM
From: astyanax	Respond to of 164684

TheStreet.com slams Alan Abelson and Barrons! Article: [right on target] With free trial subscription @ TheStreet.com, you can view the HTML-ized article and other analysis on breaking news. === SiliconStreet.com Alan One-Note and the Amazon Blues By Adam Lashinsky Silicon Valley Columnist 6/2/99 7:00 AM ET URL: thestreet.com There's a school of thought that says if you say something often enough and loudly enough eventually it might come true. Barron's clearly belongs to this school when it comes to Amazon.com (AMZN:Nasdaq), one of Tuesday's stocks du jour. As any tech investor within earshot of CNBC knows by now, the venerable newsweekly over the weekend threw the book at the online retailer in an article that repeated many of the negative points Amazon bears have been mouthing since (Internet) time immemorial (1997): It'll never make a profit, rabid discounting will be its undoing, book margins stink in the best of times. Not even the support of Amazon's Wall Street cheerleaders could stem the stock's fall of nearly 13, or 11%, to 105 13/16. The chief whine against the Barron's piece is that the hatchet job is old news and that Barron's simply was late to the anti-Amazon bandwagon. Turns out that's only half true: It is old news in part because Barron's has reported it again and again and again. In fact, as TSC's David Shabelman noted last month, Seattle-based Amazon has been something of an obsession for the wickedly humorous columnist Alan Abelson, who pens the magazine's "Up and Down Wall Street" column. But it hasn't been a profitable obsession for investors who heeded the Barron's call. Abelson, who is not the author of the current cover story, first shopped his Amazon line on Nov. 17, 1997, with the cutting-edge realization that considering Amazon didn't plan to be profitable until at least 1999 (sic), "for a company awarded a market cap of $1.2 billion, it seems a long wait until payday." Abelson also noted that Barnes & Noble (BKS:NYSE) would be able to eat Amazon's lunch with a "relatively modest cost of entry" of $15 million. At the time, Amazon's stock traded for a split-adjusted 8 1/3. And for those keeping score at home, barnesandnoble.com (BNBN:Nasdaq) lost $117 million through the end of March ramping up its Web site, according to the company's recent initial public offering prospectus. Shares of parent Barnes & Noble were at 26 7/16 then. Tuesday's close: 27 3/8. No splits. Abelson next struck on March 2, 1998, inveighing that Amazon "is completely unburdened by earnings and in no immediate danger (for the rest of this decade, anyway) of showing a profit." Nascent competition continued to worry Abelson. That and "the absurdity of its valuation and its failure so far to show a profit." Amazon's split-adjusted price at the time: 12 13/16. By June 15, when, still, "Amazon has not yet earned a penny," the stock was at 20 1/3. A week later, the stock reached 25 1/4 when Abelson noted "that total U.S. demand for books was up a meager 2.2% in '97 and is negative so far this year." And by Nov. 30, when "Amazon's market capitalization has swelled so awesomely that it's bigger than the combined caps of Barnes & Noble and Borders (BGP:NYSE), two much larger companies with far greater assets and sales but with the distinct disadvantage of earning money," the stock traded for 64. Is the point of all this that Amazon is not overvalued? Of course not. And is the point that financial columnists always get it right? Nope. How I wish I hadn't bashed DoubleClick (DCLK:Nasdaq) on April 1, 1998, when the stock traded at a split-adjusted 17 1/2. It closed Tuesday at 91 15/16, down 48% from its high but up fivefold from when I panned it. The point is that staying away from a rising stock can be as frustrating -- if not more damaging -- than holding a falling stock. What's more, repeating the same arguments over and over while investors have moved on to new views of a stock or a segment doesn't add much value. Finally, Amazon's stock price has a long way to go to catch up to where Barron's first thought it was dead meat. Adam Lashinsky's column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In keeping with TSC's editorial policy, he doesn't own or short individual stocks, although he owns stock in TheStreet.com. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. Lashinsky writes a monthly column for Fortune called the Wired Investor, and is a frequent commentator on public radio's Marketplace program. He welcomes your feedback at alashinsky@thestreet.com. © 1999 TheStreet.com, All Rights Reserved. == - Netconductor.com

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (59957)	6/2/1999 1:10:00 PM
From: H James Morris	Respond to of 164684

>>No they weren't. AOL's model was turned upside down. << William good point. Ok, lets try this. Aol's model was, Amzn's model is. I think that you think, Bezos can turn his upside model around, and I think not. It appears that since Bezos last told the street it might take him "10" years. Wall Street is now betting with me. Ps Aol gets $21ps per month, when Bezos can get his subscribers to do the same, you'll get my attention, but not until. Did you know that Costco charges an annual fee to shop there?? Maybe Bezos can. We'll just have wait and see.