????“亞馬遜股價之謎”是當前媒體熱衷的一個股市報導主題。隨著亞馬遜（Amazon）股價不斷創下新高，《紐約時報》（The New York Times）、《大西洋月刊》（The Atlantic）、《Slate》電子雜志、彭博社（Bloomberg）和很多其他媒體都指出，亞馬遜幾乎從未公布過高額利潤，最近一個季度甚至出現了虧損。但這家公司仍躋身全美最有價值公司20強，最近市值甚至超過了美國電話電報公司（AT&T）和可口可樂（Coca-Cola）。這是怎么回事？

????其實，這是有原因的，但我從未看到任何一篇有關亞馬遜的報道中提到過。原因就是亞馬遜在過去十年表現異常出色，但根據會計規定發布的財務報告沒有清楚地體現它的出色。具體而言，這些報告中最常被提及的凈利潤數據（最近三年亞馬遜凈利潤一直在下降）對于投資者而言并不是最重要的。

????多年來的研究顯示，投資者真正關心的不是每股收益，而是經濟利潤，亞馬遜在這方面是一個近乎完美的典范。經濟利潤是包含企業所有資本全部成本的一項指標，這是當今按規定披露的財務報告不會告訴你的。投資者想看到經濟利潤的增加，而亞馬遜在這方面似乎保持了增長。他們只是將每股收益視為是一個腳注。

????你們知道的是，亞馬遜從2000年以來一直呈現出色的經濟利潤增長，無論同期每股收益是增長、下降還是持平。這兩項盈利指標怎么會出現這么顯著的差異？就亞馬遜而言，原因很簡單。會計條例規定，研發和廣告費用必須在支出發生當年從利潤中全額扣除。但業內人士都知道，這些支出是真正的投資，會在未來產生回報。因此，在計算經濟利潤時，正如咨詢公司EVA Dimensions的做法，研發和廣告被視為是資本開支，分別按5年和3年攤銷。但天下沒有免費的午餐；在經濟利潤框架下，由于這部分新資本成本，亞馬遜的利潤系于7.2%的資本成本。

????在亞馬遜，這個簡單的改變有重大差異。亞馬遜CEO杰夫?貝佐斯在過去的5年中將研發和廣告費用增加了5倍。根據會計規定，這些巨額支出對亞馬遜公布的每股收益產生了重大影響，但在計算經濟利潤時的影響卻相對溫和。正如EVA Dimensions負責人班尼特?斯提沃特解釋的那樣，亞馬遜事實上在“加速無形資產、自主能力和品牌力的投資，提升長期價值。”

????當然，這樣的處理可能會讓亞馬遜的業績在一些年里不如其他公司。但是亞馬遜還是實現了長期的經濟利潤增長，在過去14年中從虧損10億美元增長至盈利16億美元。這樣出色的過往業績使得投資者至少有一定的理由推測，這種增長將繼續，而這也推動了這只股票的上漲。

????沒人知道以當前的股價來判斷，亞馬遜到底是不是項好的投資。股價的基礎是對于不可知未來的猜測。如果我們不在著眼于亞馬遜估值大漲“之謎”本身，轉而想一下，財務報表規則其實是很久以前為工業經濟時代的債券持有人設計的，不再適應信息時代的股東們，這個謎團就不會那么神秘了。也就是說，這些財務報表并不能告訴我們，什么對于投資者是最重要的東西。（財富中文網）???

????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.