Hold off on Amazon

Article Excerpt

AMAZON.COM $488.27 (Nasdaq symbol AMZN; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (206-266-1000; www.amazon.com; Shares outstanding: 465.7 million; Market cap: $227.3 billion; No dividends paid) continues to excel in a range of businesses; its shares are now at all-time highs. The company is a major online retailer that’s growing quickly in new areas. For example, Amazon Web Services offers cloud services through 11 data centres worldwide. It accounts for just 7% of Amazon’s sales, but that’s growing at over 50% a year. However, when Amazon enters a new line of business, it’s happy to make little profit, or even lose money. This is an appropriate growth strategy. Eventually, competitors will catch up with its technology and business practices. In the meantime, it focuses on building a large and loyal clientele. The problem is that the stock trades at a whopping 977 times this year’s estimated earnings of $0.50 a share and at 172 times its forecast 2016 profits of $2.84. That leaves it…