trends

• Amazon.com is scheduled to release fourth-quarter 2008 earnings results today in a conference call at 5:00 PM ET. You can catch the live webcast here.
• Amazon supposedly had the best holiday season ever, beating out many of the major retailers. They were selling 72.9 items per second during the holiday shopping season. Thomson Reuters expect Amazon to report a profit of $0.39 per share, compared to $0.48 per share in the same period of the previous year. Although the holiday sales season was a monster hit for Amazon, revenue for the quarter is expected to total $6.4 billion, down 13.5% from a year ago.
• As BloggingStocks points out, Amazon is notorious for blowing earnings reports out of the water, beating some quarterly reports by as much as 43%. As I have said before, Amazon is fine in the down economy. It comes down to a simple equation to define their success: There is a much greater increase in online shopping adoption compared to the decrease in consumer spending this year. Some investors realize this. The share price has risen more than 30% from its 52-week low back in November. It is still down 33% from a year ago, but expect things to continue trending upward for the online retail giant. Keep in mind, the Kindle 2 hasn’t even come out yet.

Earnings Are Out:

Highlights:

• Operating cash flow was $1.70 billion in 2008, compared with $1.41 billion in 2007.
• Free cash flow increased 16% to $1.36 billion in 2008, compared with $1.18 billion in 2007.
• Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards outstanding totaled 446 million on December 31, 2008, compared with 435 million a year ago.
• Net sales increased 18% to $6.70 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $5.67 billion in fourth quarter 2007.
• Operating income was $272 million in the fourth quarter, compared with $271 million in fourth quarter 2007.
• Net income increased 9% to $225 million in the fourth quarter, or $0.52 per diluted share, compared with net income of $207 million, or $0.48 per diluted share, in fourth quarter 2007.

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