[kalininalex]

Amazon has been operating at near breakeven point for a long time. Most of the years the make some money, sometimes they lose a bit.

Their stock holds up because they increase their revenue, and market share, at a huge speed. This is reasonable. In fact, that's what most startup companies do after raising Series A, B, C, etc. funding - they usually spend a lot more than they make (i.e. "burn" cash) with the goal to grow the market share as quickly as possible. Amazon is a public company with significant cashflows, so they use internal funds to grow.

Here're the latest approximate revenue/profits number from Amazon (all in billion):

2007: $14 / $0.5

2008: $19 / $0.6

2009: $24 / $0.9

2010: $34 / $1.1

2011: $48 / $0.6

2012: $61 / $(0.04) (loss of $40 million)

This is a very impressive growth (in revenue) for a large company. Having said that, one day it will stop, so by then Amazon will need to show impressive earnings, or its stock may get punished.