Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha Portfolio App for iPad
Finance
(1)

Paulo Santos

View as an RSS Feed
View Paulo Santos' Comments BY TICKER:
Latest  |  Highest rated
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    lil, "normalized operating income" is the same as "made up income".I explained why you can't take marketing and especially tech costs and deduct part of them based on some kind of historical average. The average for tech would, for instance, include periods where AWS didn't exist or was very small.

    I too believe AMZN can be MORE profitable than it is currently, and while I expected AMZN to post a quarter of losses, I wouldn't dream of it posting an entire year of losses as it did, either.

    I have already shown my long-term model for AMZN, as well: http://seekingalpha.co...

    You can apply any kind of rational multiple to those estimates and will have trouble coming up with today's stock price.
    May 24 12:47 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    The comment is right, actually. It doesn't much matter what yield the Fed realizes. For the State, an 8% coupon is an 8% coupon, and for the Fed any kind of loss is irrelevant.

    Also, the Fed targeting the higher coupons means that it was taking its budget impact into account. Not only is it monetizing the debt, but it's optimizing to monetize as much as possible, to have the highest possible impact. It's well into banana republic territory.
    May 24 10:38 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    You "print money" when you are able to buy something from somebody and not have to sell it something not to owe him anything.

    The Fed is printing money in that the U.S. State can buy something with debt and have that debt go away in practical terms once it's bought by the Fed. So the State buys something and still ends up without having to owe anything for it - it thus used "printed money".

    What really keeps inflation from going haywire, is that the State would need to be increasing what it buys rapidly, to produce inflation. And the State isn't doing so, at least not yet.
    May 24 09:19 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    Yes, I live in Portugal, but I do read a lot.

    However, I don't much follow European markets. It's much easier to get information on the U.S. markets, so I stick mostly to those. I did follow Portuguese and Spanish stocks a few months ago when it was rather obvious that blood was flowing in the streets, but that was a one-off. I wrote a series of articles on it.
    May 24 08:49 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    I haven't said anything about those. AMZN is what, 15 years old already? It's moving around $100 billion in merchandise. If it was going to be hugely profitable, it would be hugely profitable already.
    May 24 06:00 AM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    In all likelihood. Though it is NOT impossible that AMZN ends up making large profits. It's also not impossible to win the lottery, but that is no excuse to pay $10 million for a ticket yielding a prize of $10 million if it does pay out.
    May 23 09:01 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    It works like this:

    http://seekingalpha.co...
    May 23 05:26 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    Using rosy assumptions for the future, anyone can justify anything. You call it "short term", I call it 2.5 years of declining earnings - right now even I expect earnings to go up - I just don't ever expect them to be high enough to justify $120 billion in market cap. And besides, justifying $120 billion in market cap isn't easy, either. Very few companies attain the fundamentals necessary to do that.

    I've explained why it's hard for AMZN's earnings to go up as much as needed. And there are many different trends going against AMZN right now, such as the migration towards digital content (have you seen how content is bought for iOS, Android, the Xbox, etc? ALL of them have their integrated stores leaving browser-based buys as an afterthough) or the need to collect sales taxes now (a huge advantage that's disappearing).

    Plus we also know that a similar business - generalist mail order - lost out against bricks and mortar, certainly due to the fact that it has to eat the costs of delivery, picking and packing. That hasn't changed.
    May 23 05:25 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    "It's everywhere" in terms of chasing every asset.
    May 23 09:28 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    ...and nearly 2 more months of (probably) adding up to it have gone by, since. I believe a new record for margin debt will be set.
    May 23 06:45 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    Hard to say, no matter how many scares, the bottom line is that he's still printing. Though I do expect that somewhere down the road we'll be graced with yet another flash crash, since at some point the market will be composed almost solely of longs and leveraged longs and when it drops, it will drop into a void.
    May 22 06:22 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Apple's Magic Is Broken [View article]
    Those are reasons why WP8 and Android do have a chance. Once people get to know what's possible with an OS that's not possible with the other, it can really make a difference.
    May 22 05:31 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Amazon - The Mystifying Estimates For The Quarter Just Ahead [View article]
    Depends on how you look at margins - the U.S. margins "seem" better because people have taken to ignoring compensation paid in stock. Most of this is paid in the U.S. so "CSOI" margins appear better in the U.S. Also AWS is in the U.S. and might be profitable, so it helps the U.S. margins.

    Obviously I think (and have explained why) that compensation paid in stock cannot be ignored. If it could, you could make ponzi schemes out of the thing (companies that looked profitable just because they sold something at cost but paid the cost in stock).
    May 22 06:39 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Microsoft (MSFT) unveils the Xbox One, a 3rd-gen console it pitches as "the ultimate all-in-one entertainment system. The device has a rectangular, set-top box-like shape, a slightly bigger controller. a revamped Xbox Live UI, improved app/game loading and switching times, and fresh voice/gesture controls. AMD is widely believed to provide an integrated CPU/GPU for the system. (live blog) (previous[View news story]
    Trsanscripts, I mean demanding action games, for which consoles are usually used.
    May 21 09:38 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Microsoft (MSFT) unveils the Xbox One, a 3rd-gen console it pitches as "the ultimate all-in-one entertainment system. The device has a rectangular, set-top box-like shape, a slightly bigger controller. a revamped Xbox Live UI, improved app/game loading and switching times, and fresh voice/gesture controls. AMD is widely believed to provide an integrated CPU/GPU for the system. (live blog) (previous[View news story]
    How many people have you ever seen playing games in windows, using windows instead of full screen?
    May 21 08:47 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
COMMENTS STATS
11,687 Comments
14,483 Likes