by David Kranzler
Investment Research Dynamics
The mainstream financial media headlines reporting Amazon’s Q2 earnings release were shamelessly pathetic: “Amazon crushes Street forecast,” “Amazon beats again in Q2 thanks to cloud services.” It was beyond nauseating. The entire spectacle reminds me of the tech bubble, when companies like Cisco, Sun Microsystems and Intel would intentionally “guide” Street analysts into publishing a low consensus forecast the CFOs knew could easily be topped with accounting gimmicks.
Bezos applies all the traditional accounting gimmicks plus he’s created his own, specifically with regard to his definition of “free cash flow.”