Cash Flow? No, Amazon Is a Money Pit

Bullish arguments for Amazon.com invariably boil down to pointing out the company's seemingly robust cash flow generation. In 2014, while net income was negative, Amazon produced a staggering $6.8 billion in operating cash flow and nearly $2 billion in free cash flow. It's no surprise that these two numbers are touted at the very beginning of a typical Amazon earnings release, well before the net losses are mentioned.