Amazon reports rare profit and is punished by Wall Street

Stock market

The joke that is the stock market reveals its same old punchline.

Hahahaha, a "wide margin" between $25.59 and $26.06, hahahaha...

Hmm

Even if Prime membership goes up, I'll probably keep it-> the savings on shipping alone cover it. I like Amazon, I get my cases of Yorkshire Gold and PG Tips inexpensively as opposed to anybody who might carry it (although I did see PGTips in Walmart 40ct box recently).

As a side note: Those Kindle Fires make *excellent* Cyanogenmod KitKat Android tablets. The original Fire flies with it.*

*Wife wanted to play Clash of Clans, Amazon's fork cannot load it due to the Google Play requirement for micro-transactions and progress saves-> Root, KitKat, Kindle Books, and Google Play. Clash On! lol Very quick. ;)

Search in Youtube with the terms:

BBC Panorama amazon truth behind the click.

30 minute programme. Very illuminating. These are the guys who are closing down the little companies because they can rarely afford to compete. Amazon can sell at tiny prices with the minutest profit margins, because they sell so much, pay staff next to nothing, and treat them like shown in this film. On top of that, Amazon contrive to avoid tax payments around the world by using an international network of service companies, which genuine customers really believe is the national version of the Amazon shop, and so think they are supporting national interests and workers. You see how the workers are treated in the 30 minute BBC film. And, in reality, Amazon in many countries is not a shop. For example, in many European countries, the Amazon shop is in Luxembourg where it has large tax breaks for sales made in other countries, taking massive proportions of the earned income of those countries, spent by consumers who think they are spending it at home. Not so. There is some tax paid through the national Amazon service company, but a fraction what it would be if that were an actual national Amazon shop as many customers are led to believe.

This further puts small businesses doing all they can to survive - OUT OF BUSINESS. They are the ones paying the full corporate taxes, not Amazon who sells by the millions per day. No-one can compete with this. It is things like this which are rooting countries deeply in hard times, unable to pull themselves out. If entrepreneurs or people with bootstrap start ups can't even establish small businesses because they're already priced out of the market by human rights denying, tax avoiding, foreign residing Amazon, just how can nations heal themselves and pick themselves up from the doldrums?

Spread the word. It is time something was done about this cancer called Amazon. Can you survive without saving £2 per small buy from Amazon, over the next cheapest place in the search listings? Of course you can - every time, even if you miss the odd item as a result. You'll have to survive that way, because otherwise, you're involved in bringing down economies, human rights, dignity, quality of life. Is that what you want to pay for every time you click "Buy" for a few dollars less in Amazon?

Let me remind you if you're not quite there - no. No, it's not what you want to pay for.

$4 billion every QUARTER on data centers? They should just go into bitcoin mining!

Wide Margin?

earnings per share of $0.51 and net sales of $25.59bn for its fourth quarter of 2013 on Thursday, missing Wall Street estimates of $0.66 and $26.06bn by a wide margin.

Umm...

51 vs 66 = 72% or 28% margin

25.58 vs 26.06 = 98% or 2% margin

So guess are close to reality I would have said. Especially the Net Sales. What kind of strange mathematics does Wall St. use?

Public Info

Why the general public feels empowerd by being able to see corporate financials I'll never know. They don't understand what the numbers actually mean and they get a bent up because learning what they mean requires spending time to bother.

Amazon is worth a little less than nothing if it isn't growing right now. They're too small to ensure sustained dominance, but too heavy on low/no margin operations to be spending their money on anything that isn't growth related.

Their price took a hit, not because it missed analysts estimates, nobody but idiots pays any mind to those fools, but because if they turned a profit they missed growth oriented investment opportunities. You could reasonably accept a break even quarter without starting executions, but a profit means somebody's not been up all night, for months, looking for growth and that's unacceptable.

Amazon absolutely cannot absorb much in the way of revenue decreases. Their cost structure is 'balanced' so precariously that any major unplanned event, combined with regular fluctuations in markets, could easily start a bleed out that is nearly impossible to stop, and everybody knows it. Slowdowns in sales aren't the problem, it's not finding ways to offset them, plus some.

BUT I WANTED A 6' TEDDY BEAR!!!!!

Followed by Wall Street flopping on their back, kicking and screaming.