[crag]

Actually I do stand corrected.. cause Amazon DID post a profit, after several quarters of almost no profit or straight-up losses (for the holiday season).

Also this crap about revenue before taxes, interests - etc (your EBITDA) is just that, crap. It's unreliable because a company can decide what is (and what is not) included in the calculation. Of course, this means that a company can change (and many do) this "measure" from reporting period to reporting period. Remember the Dot-Com bust? Companies that had no value, or any chance of value, looked great on paper due to the EBITDA.

EBITDA does not represent a company's cash. More like it's cash flow that it has to service debt (and as I already said, that calculation can be manipulated by the company). It was designed for this purpose in the 80's - the leverage buy-out decade.

// END of rant

EBITDA doesn't measure profit. Or the ability to earn profit. And frankly, it's a cop-out to state to prove a company's value.