Bill Bonner (https://uk-mg5.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=adv3o5nver64d) reports that “Amazon has raised $6 billion in additional financing. Investors readily throw their money into the River of No Returns. At only 100 basis points over Treasury borrowing costs, they worry neither about the return on their money, nor the return of their money. Over on the equity side, investors are even more sans soucis. Nasdaq shows Amazon with a p/e of MINUS 714. After 20 years, the giant marketer has never learned to make a profit. The last quarterly report showed it with losses of about $1 a share, or about $2.50 on every hundred dollars of sales”.
This is the equivalent of a 2½% discount on every purchase.
No wonder small traders and everyone else are hurting.
Paul Kruger wrote interestingly in the New York Times in October about Amazon as a monopsonist – a dominant buyer with the power to push prices down. Please see http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/opinion/paul-krugman-amazons-monopsony-is-not-ok.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A15%22%7D&_r=0