Amazon posts profits, shares drop
October 22, 2004Amazon is the sort of company most online entrepenuers can only dream of building. It’s shown what good vision and hard work can bring to internet business, despite the hype of the dotcom boom bust years. As a long-term shares investment, it looks juicy.
As reported by CNet news:
Amazon posts profit, but outlook disappoints
Amazon.com on Thursday posted quarterly earnings that more than tripled on strong international sales but offered an outlook for the current quarter and next year that was below the more bullish analyst forecasts, sending its stock down 8 percent.
Seattle-based Amazon had third-quarter net income of $54.1 million, or 13 cents per share, up from the year-earlier net income of $15.6 million, or 4 cents per share. Revenue rose to $1.46 billion from $1.13 billion, driven by a 52 percent increase in international sales and strong growth in its electronics and other merchandise segments.
Excluding items, the quarterly profit met the average analyst forecast but the company’s outlook for 2005 implied a forecast for a drop in sales growth from near 30 percent in 2004 to a range of between 6 percent and 22 percent in 2005.
I guess it reflects a strange sort of fickle expectation that stock traders looking for immediate profit who are now downsizing the company, are the ones who effectively built up the dotcom bubble in the first place.
Still, all good for the long-term investor.