longtermvalue

Amazon: Is 'Free Cash Flow' More Important Than Net Income?

Good points. The reason I brought this whole thing up was to engage in this type of discussion. While I have never seriously considered AMZN as an investment for several reasons, there are several companies that appear interesting on a FCF basis that have the same negative CCC characteristic - most subscription businesses, for example.

Out of curiousity, I downloaded from bloomberg the cash conversion cycles for all the S&P 500 companies. Of the 500, only 69% had data (not sure why so many were missing, but whatever). Of the companies with data, 13% had negative CCC. While a distinct minority, that's still 1/8 of the investment universe (assuming it's representative) for which, at a minimum, there seems to be a lack of clarity on the best way to treat this wrinkle.

At any rate, good luck with your fund.