Amazon (AMZN) / Jeff Bezos

[winston]

not vested

Amazon Payments' transaction volume surged in 2015

Source: Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazo ... nologyNews

[winston]

Technology is Destroying Earnings As One Company Dominates the Globe

By Rodney Johnson

By most accounts, holiday retail sales were a letdown. While retail sales climbed 3.3% over November and December, stores reported a 6.4% drop in foot traffic. So even though people might have spent a bit more, they were choosy in where they spent.

When customers spend less, companies earn less, affecting the bottom line. This relationship is on display at companies like Macy’s, which warned that sales were off 4.7% in November and December. The company plans to close stores and lay off thousands of workers. The same story is unfolding at Gap.

However, the pain isn’t equally distributed. L Brands Inc. – owner of Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works – had the best December ever. The differences in what these retailers sell explain the disparate outcomes, and favors another company I haven’t mentioned – Amazon.

I love the Macy’s location on the lower east side of Manhattan. The historic store covers city blocks, and even after the recent renovation it has wooden escalators. It seems like the goods on display go on for miles.

But among the racks lie the source of Macy’s woes. They sell a lot of coats. And scarves. And gloves.

On Christmas Day the temperature in New York City reached 66 degrees, making it the warmest Christmas on record. The current El Nino weather system has been pumping moisture across the U.S., and until early January had kept cold weather systems at bay in Canada.

The moderate weather during the holidays found people in New England spending time outdoors in shorts, and not very interested in buying cold weather gear.

Warmer than normal temperatures were expected, but not that warm! The weather caught Macy’s and other large clothing retailers off guard, and with a bunch of unsold inventory.

It’s not that consumers weren’t buying, to which Victoria’s Secret can attest. They just weren’t buying what a lot of major stores had to offer.

Which brings me to Amazon.

For years consumers have been migrating to online shopping. The move was expedited by high-speed Internet (remember the dialup modem sound?), which made browsing faster, and allowed sellers to offer more efficient fulfillment and return procedures.

On Black Friday weekend, brick-and-mortar stores experienced a 10% decline in sales, while online sales grew by 10%. Now, sales at physical stores are still about nine times the size of online sales, so the absolute dollar amounts don’t cancel each other out, but online sellers started their holiday offerings weeks before Thanksgiving. This allowed them to capture more sales sooner than physical stores, which had to wait for delivery of holiday items.

And then there’s the matter of what they sold.

Physical stores are limited by what they have on hand, whether it matches the temperature outside or not. Online, shoppers can browse for whatever they want, even at 2 a.m. on a Sunday.

This trend toward e-commerce, along with the sudden shift in weather-based demand, is music to the ears of online retailers, and no one in that category is happier than Amazon.

The e-commerce giant has branched out in recent years, introducing its Prime membership with free shipping, Amazon video and music streaming, and cloud computing for storage. But the main reason most people visit the site is to buy stuff. And boy, do they buy stuff!

Over the holiday season, Amazon accounted for 42.7% of all online sales.

Think about that for a second.

One company handled almost half of all Internet sales for the entire country. How’s that for reach? In fact, Amazon captured more sales than the next 10 closest online retailers combined, including Best Buy, Apple, and Walmart.

What’s more, the company doesn’t make many things. It’s typically a pass-through for other people’s stuff. If more buyers want swimsuits than parkas, who cares? Sell ‘em what they want!

Amazon’s ability to offer us millions of goods, and then put them in our hands within a day or two – sometimes the same day – without having retail locations is nothing short of a technical marvel.

The company is a bundle of Internet expertise, marketing savvy, and logistical prowess. They are giving us what we want, when we want it, and we’re rewarding them for it with astronomical sales.

They’re also destroying other companies in the process. Macy’s, Gap, Kohl’s, even Nordstrom are all feeling the heat from a competitor they can’t touch, can’t match, and can’t catch.

Those that can’t adapt to the new way of doing business will shrink. Earnings will fall as efficiencies drive down costs, allowing consumers to keep more of their dollars in their pockets.

As for Amazon, their global domination continues.

The company reports earnings on Thursday. I have no idea what they will report. Since inception, they’ve plowed almost every earned dollar back into growth, not focusing on profits. If the goal was to own their space and become synonymous with online spending, they’ve achieved it!

Source: Economy & Markets

[winston]

not vested

Amazon's shares plunge as sales, profit miss Wall Street estimates

Amazon’s Prime program is estimated by some analysts to have around 50 million members worldwide.

BY MARI SAITO AND ARATHY S NAIR

Source: Reuters


http://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazo ... nologyNews

[winston]

Stocks to Buy in a Crash: Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) is not your everyday stock.

Because Jeff Bezos seems more interested in experimenting with so many other possible revenue sources, he’s able to take free cash flow and grow the business while also engaging in some venture capital opportunities.

I don’t think we’ll ever be able to value AMZN stock on a price-to-earnings basis. Some say that means we should stay away from it and not include it on a list of stocks to buy.

I’m not so sure.

While I’d like to say AMZN stock is good to buy and hold for a long time, I don’t think you can comfortably do that above $200 per share. I don’t think we’ll see that.

However, Amazon can make a supremely profitable mid-to-long-term trade. The market has a way of bidding AMZN stock up in good times and bad. If you get shares, you can even turn around and sell covered calls against it for big premiums.

If AMZN stock falls below $400, I would buy and set a 7% stop loss.

Source: Investor Place

[winston]

Amazon shares plunge as record profit still misses estimates

BY MARI SAITO AND ARATHY S NAIR

Source: Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazo ... nologyNews

[winston]

Worried analysts question Amazon's logistics plans

BY MARI SAITO

Source: Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazo ... nologyNews

[winston]

Amazon shorts make money with deft timing on Thursday's wild ride

BY SAQIB IQBAL AHMED

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazo ... Name=usdai

[winston]

Why Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Is Still Your Best Bet in 2016

Retail dominance and AWS make this pick a winner

By Jeff Reeves

Source: Investor Place

http://investorplace.com/2016/02/amzn-s ... s5xO5x96M8

[behappyalways]

How Amazon Shames Warehouse Workers for Alleged Theft
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... f-a-bummer

[winston]

not vested

Best Stocks of the Bull Market: Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)

Market Cap: $261 billion

Change Since Bear-Market Bottom: 824%

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) is the best performing mega-cap stock of the bear market by a wide margin.

Bears will point to the fact that it has done so while generating intermittent profit growth, and bulls will rightly point out that that just doesn’t matter.

Over the last seven years, AMZN has solidified its overwhelming superiority in e-commerce. It has developed a strong position in streaming media and content creation. Best of all, the company’s cloud-based services business is a whopper that’s just starting to take off.

AMZN stock looks pricey on a forward earnings basis, but not if you believe in its growth prospects. Pundits criticize CEOs for short-term, quarter-to-quarter thinking. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is thinking in decades.

On that time frame, AMZN is almost assuredly a bargain.

Source: Investor Place