From Larry Jensen: "Your shorts of Amazon.com ought to work out. Obviously, people will NOT be using it as a portal for buying everything, since they’ll be too busy buying and selling everything at auction on eBay. Or at least that’s what I see the market saying. I wrote to you last Wednesday, when eBay was $147 1/2, after writing in late October at $80. Today it closed at 196 13/16, after trading as high as 234 1/8! Volume was 6,003,400 shares, roughly meaning that EVERY share in public hands traded TWICE, today! Words like frenzy, mania, and irrational exuberance hardly seem adequate any more, so I’m pleading with you to come up with an appropriate mania scale that can handle the task. I’m still completely on the sidelines with this one, hoping that my Vanguard Index 500 shares don’t get hit by the shrapnel when this bubble bursts. But it feels like skipping the party of the year. P.S. The hot, impossible-to-find toy of the year is supposed to be the ‘Furby.’ Have no fear, there are 2,277 Furbies on auction at eBay this minute. Scalping toys has just been raised to another level."
An opposing view …
From John Ruman: "There is a book out called The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing — very entertaining. And in the beginning they say something like … ‘Quick — who was the first man to walk on the moon?’ And everyone knows the answer — Armstrong (Amazon??). Then they say … ‘Who was the second person to walk on the moon??’ and not too many people know that one!!(Barnes and Noble??) There is Coke — and Pepsi — and everyone else. I think Amazon’s stock will get there first (to the moon!)."
