A Fool Looks Back

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz | More Articles
December 17, 2011 | Comments (2)

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Amazon.com's (Nasdaq: AMZN ) Kindle Fire is for real.

A week that began with a scorching critique on early adopter resentment -- likening the e-tailer's entry-level tablet to the short-lived Edsel -- was capped off with a rare rebuttal on behalf of Amazon.

Amazon issued a press release claiming that it has sold millions of Kindle Fires already. The leading online retailer says that sales growth is accelerating with every passing week and that it has ordered millions more. In other words, even with its flaws the $199 price point is proving to be too tempting to pass up.

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL ) may not be publicly worried, but it can't be a coincidence that some analysts are scaling back their iPad 2 targets for this holiday quarter just as a "good enough" tablet is making waves.

Briefly in the news
And now let's take a quick look at some of the other stories that shaped our week.

InterMune (Nasdaq: ITMN ) took a hit after a German advisory group concluded that the benefits of InterMune's pirfenidone drug aren't worth the gastrointestinal and skin-damage side effects it may cause.
Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI ) star Howard Stern will be a celebrity judge on NBC's America's Got Talent next season. The move should create some welcome free publicity for the premium radio service.
Avon Products (NYSE: AVP ) will be looking for a new CEO after announcing that maligned leader Andrea Jung will take a step back at the company. Corporate headhunters: Avon calling!

Until next week, I remain,

Rick Munarriz

The Steve Jobs Betrayal
You may already know that in the final year of his life, Jobs revealed a stunning betrayal — and told his biographer, "I will spend my last dying breath... and every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong." What was it that made Jobs so irate — and why could it make a few in-the-know investors some major profits over the coming months and years?

Enter your email address below to find out what made Jobs so enraged!

The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com and Apple. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Apple and Amazon.com and creating a bull call spread position in Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz calls them as he sees them. He owns no shares in any of the stocks in this story and is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Report this Comment On December 17, 2011, at 8:28 AM, gowthinvestor wrote:

AMZN released its Kindle Fire sales because its shares were getting hammered and needed to stop the bleeding. So it put something out that can't be audited but gives investors a bone.
I read the AMZN invests for the long term. Its been 15 years since it went public how long is long term before we see those profits we are all waiting for.
Report this Comment On December 18, 2011, at 6:31 AM, gwendog wrote:

Writing as an author recently published, my lit. agency strongly suggested ignoring the printed route but instead, go straight to ebook. Apparently sales of hard copy titles are in freefall and, aside from the vanity aspect, essentially not viable from the writers perspective.
Amazon claim ebook sales are now outstripping 'proper' sales on paperback and thankfully, sales of my own title seem to back it up.
Doing the oblig 'ramp', the book is at http://www.amazon.co.uk/State-of-Independence-ebook/dp/B005Q...

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