Amazon Thinks Big, and That Doesn’t Come Cheap

See this chart? It shows that Wall Street is in one of those cyclical peaks of optimism that Amazon.com Inc. is starting to turn into a profoundly profitable company that will justify years of relatively tiny earnings.

But Amazon doesn’t give a hoot about outsiders’ expectations. Yes, it’s true that the e-commerce giant has fundamentally improved profit characteristics now that it’s getting bigger chunks of its sales from high-margin initiatives including the company’s cloud-computing service and Amazon’s role as a shopping mall for non-Amazon merchants. But let’s not forget that Amazon is still Amazon, and that means the company is always hunting for its next huge market that will require oodles of cash.