亚马逊股价神秘上涨背后的真相

    “亚马逊股价之谜”是当前媒体热衷的一个股市报导主题。随着亚马逊（Amazon）股价不断创下新高，《纽约时报》（The New York Times）、《大西洋月刊》（The Atlantic）、《Slate》电子杂志、彭博社（Bloomberg）和很多其他媒体都指出，亚马逊几乎从未公布过高额利润，最近一个季度甚至出现了亏损。但这家公司仍跻身全美最有价值公司20强，最近市值甚至超过了美国电话电报公司（AT&T）和可口可乐（Coca-Cola）。这是怎么回事？

    其实，这是有原因的，但我从未看到任何一篇有关亚马逊的报道中提到过。原因就是亚马逊在过去十年表现异常出色，但根据会计规定发布的财务报告没有清楚地体现它的出色。具体而言，这些报告中最常被提及的净利润数据（最近三年亚马逊净利润一直在下降）对于投资者而言并不是最重要的。

    多年来的研究显示，投资者真正关心的不是每股收益，而是经济利润，亚马逊在这方面是一个近乎完美的典范。经济利润是包含企业所有资本全部成本的一项指标，这是当今按规定披露的财务报告不会告诉你的。投资者想看到经济利润的增加，而亚马逊在这方面似乎保持了增长。他们只是将每股收益视为是一个脚注。

    你们知道的是，亚马逊从2000年以来一直呈现出色的经济利润增长，无论同期每股收益是增长、下降还是持平。这两项盈利指标怎么会出现这么显著的差异？就亚马逊而言，原因很简单。会计条例规定，研发和广告费用必须在支出发生当年从利润中全额扣除。但业内人士都知道，这些支出是真正的投资，会在未来产生回报。因此，在计算经济利润时，正如咨询公司EVA Dimensions的做法，研发和广告被视为是资本开支，分别按5年和3年摊销。但天下没有免费的午餐；在经济利润框架下，由于这部分新资本成本，亚马逊的利润系于7.2%的资本成本。

    在亚马逊，这个简单的改变有重大差异。亚马逊CEO杰夫•贝佐斯在过去的5年中将研发和广告费用增加了5倍。根据会计规定，这些巨额支出对亚马逊公布的每股收益产生了重大影响，但在计算经济利润时的影响却相对温和。正如EVA Dimensions负责人班尼特•斯提沃特解释的那样，亚马逊事实上在“加速无形资产、自主能力和品牌力的投资，提升长期价值。”

    当然，这样的处理可能会让亚马逊的业绩在一些年里不如其他公司。但是亚马逊还是实现了长期的经济利润增长，在过去14年中从亏损10亿美元增长至盈利16亿美元。这样出色的过往业绩使得投资者至少有一定的理由推测，这种增长将继续，而这也推动了这只股票的上涨。

    没人知道以当前的股价来判断，亚马逊到底是不是项好的投资。股价的基础是对于不可知未来的猜测。如果我们不在着眼于亚马逊估值大涨“之谜”本身，转而想一下，财务报表规则其实是很久以前为工业经济时代的债券持有人设计的，不再适应信息时代的股东们，这个谜团就不会那么神秘了。也就是说，这些财务报表并不能告诉我们，什么对于投资者是最重要的东西。（财富中文网）   

    The media's vogue stock market story of the moment is "The Mystery of Amazon's Share Price." As the company's shares keep hitting record highs, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Bloomberg, and many others point out that Amazon (AMZN) hardly ever reports a substantial profit and in the most recent quarter reported a loss. Yet the company is among the 20 most valuable in America, recently worth more than AT&T (T) or Coca-Cola (KO). What gives?

    Turns out there's an answer, though I haven't seen it cited in any of the Amazon-conundrum articles. The answer is that Amazon has actually performed spectacularly over the past decade, but that performance isn't clearly revealed in the financial reports the company is required to issue under accounting rules. Specifically, the most frequently noted bottom-line number in those reports, earnings per share – which at Amazon has been declining for nearly three years – is not what matters most to investors.

    Research has shown for years that what investors really care about is not EPS but economic profit, and Amazon turns out to be a near-perfect example. Economic profit is a measure that includes the full cost of all the capital in a business, and today's required financial reports don't tell you that. Investors want to see rising economic profit that seems likely to keep rising. They look at EPS as a footnote.

    And, what do you know, Amazon has been turning in consistently excellent economic profit growth since 2000, even as EPS has gone up, down, and sideways. How can these two profit measures diverge so dramatically? In Amazon's case it's simple. Accounting rules say that money spent on R&D and advertising must be fully deducted from profit in the year spent. But everyone in business knows that such expenditures are really investments that will pay off down the road. So in calculating economic profit, as done by the EVA Dimensions consulting firm, R&D and advertising are regarded as capital expenditures and are amortized over five and three years respectively. There is no free lunch, though; in the economic profit framework, Amazon's profit gets docked each year for the cost of that new capital, at Amazon's 7.2% cost of capital.

    At Amazon, that simple change makes a huge difference. CEO Jeff Bezos has sextupled both R&D and advertising over the past five years. Under accounting rules, those massive expenditures massacre reported EPS, but they're treated much more gently in economic profit. As EVA Dimensions chief Bennett Stewart explains, Amazon is really "accelerating investments in intangible assets and proprietary capabilities and brand strength to enhance its long-run value."

    Of course such treatment could make any company's results look better for a few years. Amazon, however, has delivered over the long run, increasing its economic profit over the past 14 years from -$1 billion to $1.6 billion. That impressive record gives investors at least some reason to suspect the increases may continue, which would help account for the booming stock.

    No one knows whether Amazon is a good investment at today's price. Stock prices are based on guesses about the unknowable future. But the "mystery" of Amazon's surging valuation over recent years becomes a lot less mysterious when we stop trying to understand it by looking at financial statements that were developed long ago for bondholders in an industrial economy, not for stockholders in an information economy – statements that don't tell us what matters most to investors.