What's big, orange, outrageous, promising to create US jobs, and sinking in popularity? Amazon.com shares sank in after-hours trading after its Q4 2016 earnings fell short of analysts' estimates. The online retail and tech services firm reported fourth quarter sales of $43.7bn, up 22 per cent from $35.7bn in the same period a year ago. Net income reached $749m, or $1.54 per diluted share, up from $482m, or $1.00 …
creating jobs or increasing efficiency (just like all corps with fiduciary duty to their shareholders)? As it is, I can see fewer than ever reasons to buy anything from them (especially now that tax free loophole is over) and even fewer reasons to sign up for Prime (it'd never pay for itself and - thanks to Visa - getting rid off recurring payments is undue hassle to even try it).
Every effing quarter there is some clown putting out nonsense articles about Amazon's economic performance. You will be disappointed to learn that most of the down turn you report in after hours trading has been regained by the time I wrote this. But more than that, the modest downturn in share price you report only left the stock where it was at the beginning of the day.
Remarkably, Amazon posted a profit. For years Amazon has had a policy of making zero profit instead investing that in the business - mainly cloud infrastructure. Sometimes Amazon makes a bit of a loss, sometimes its a bit of a profit. Why make profit that you have to share it with Uncle Sam? You can see the cash being used as investments by Amazon by reviewing the cash flow section of the 10-K (the annual financial report submitted to the US Securities and Exchange commission.
In the meantime the share price has risen from $681 on Jun 27th 2016 to $817 as I write. What *exactly* is wrong with that? How can a small (and now disappeared) blip be set against that huge gain in less than a year. Get some perspective.
Why make profit that you have to share it with Uncle Sam?
As a 'thank you' for maintaining the roads your delivery vehicles run on, and for educating the people you employ? For protecting them from terrorists, even!
Corporation tax makes up about 9% of federal revenue -- about two-thirds of the defence budget, to give it some context. The effective rate of corporation tax across the economy is less than half the headline rate (due to use of tax shelters and other schemes, and of strategies like Amazon's). No doubt they'd all be very happy to reduce that to zero, but there would of course be knock-on effects to society.
Company A gets punished by a drop in share Price for pulling in $750 Million in Profit for the year.
Company B (*cough*Snapchat*cough*) which loses $500 Million a year and admits it's unlikely to ever make a Profit, Looks like pulling in $3 Billion in an IPO.
Is there some sort of required medical operation in order to become an Investor. Perhaps one that removes the potential Investors brain?
You should watch 'Something Ventured'. It's odd to say but it's a genuinely engaging documentary about the pioneers of venture capitalism.
These people invested in the likes of Cisco, Apple and Intel and made an enormous amount of money in the process. I can't imagine any of the people featured investing in a company where the business plan is solely to be bought out by one of the digital behemoths - yet here we are...
Stocks and shares price speculation in terms of investment is just gambling, no more no less.
If the benefit to investors was only the premium then fair enough but stock price manpulation pulls in the usual fraudsters and suckers associated with other forms of gambling.
That the same share price is used to judge the sucess of a company and limit access to loans shows just how messed up the system is. Each year the majority of new companies fold, not because they weren't making a profit but because their loans were called in.
Worse is when the investors are influencial enough to raid/damage the state when they loose their bets, equivalent to state sponsered booze for alcoholics and then making them drive a full school bus.
Personally I would make it so stocks and shares could not be traded for a year after purchase then all the bad aspects of the system would disappear whilst retaining all the benefit to companies and the majority of investors.
Which is better a reasonably predictable return on your inventment in a company or loosing your stake because you were manipulated into believing that the existing system is predictable by anyone.
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