How long can Amazon go without making money?

The online retailer posts a loss for the third quarter, but investors are utterly unfazed by the company's consistently poor earnings

An Amazon employee sorts packages in Arizona: The online retailing giant's deep discounts may be its demise.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

This week, Amazon reported a loss of $274 million for the third quarter, its first loss since 2003. What's more, the online behemoth's revenues came in below analysts' expectations. But while such seriously grim news would have repercussions for any other company, Amazon's stocks faltered only momentarily before continuing a steady climb. Indeed, despite consistently poor earnings reports (while Amazon made $63 million in the third quarter of 2011, Apple profited by $7.3 billion in the same period), Amazon's stock is up nearly 30 percent this year. How does the company get away with it? "What separates Amazon from the competition is that it is not trying to make money," says David Streitfeld at The New York Times:

It is instead trying to grow as fast as it can, something it has been doing successfully for 15 years. What was once a cute start-up is now one of the country's biggest retailers.

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