, Columnist
Amazon Takes Secrecy to a Comic Extreme
Investors have been fine with it so far, but a hiccup in the company's business could make them dig in harder.
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Companies and their investors are in a constant tug-of-war over financial disclosure. Investors want as many numbers as they can get about a company's performance and potential -- for them, there's no such thing as too many metrics. Companies, of course, would prefer to reveal as little as possible.
And then there's Amazon.com Inc., which takes financial disclosure stinginess to the next level. So far, investors have been fine with it. They see one of the world's most ambitious companies and a stock price that has quadrupled since 2012, and happily toss aside their Amazon spreadsheets filled with question marks.