INSTANT VIEW: Amazon holiday outlook disappoints

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc on Wednesday gave a revenue forecast for the holiday quarter that fell short of Wall Street expectations, and its shares fell 12 percent.

COMMENTARY:

BRIAN PITZ, SENIOR INTERNET ANALYST, BANK OF AMERICA IN NEW

YORK

"The U.S. currency has gotten stronger, and since a fair amount of their revenues originate from international, essentially they have less of a tailwind to their international revenues when the dollar gets stronger. They're not getting the benefits of their international revenue."

"In the past couple of quarters, international has been about 47 percent or so of their total revenue."

TIM GHRISKEY, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, SOLARIS ASSET

MANAGEMENT IN BEDFORD HILLS, NY

"The fourth quarter is the problem. They really lowered revenue and operating income guidance. You can drive a truck through the revenue outlook it's so wide. Conservative is an understatement. Clearly they're expecting a weak holiday season, or at least preparing for that. Hopefully those estimates can be exceeded. This management has always been conservative with guidance, they've always looked at what could go wrong with sales, despite the fact that they're taking market share and growing. Not only is e-commerce growing, but they're taking e-commerce share.

"I don't think anything is broken at Amazon, and there are no major issues. They're just expecting a weak fourth quarter. Currency will also be a drag.

"The stock is down a lot right now, over 12 percent, but this is a very volatile market, I think Amazon will recover some of the ground it's losing in the after-market."

DAN GEIMAN, ANALYST, MCADAMS WRIGHT RAGEN

"Clearly they're showing a bit of deceleration, a low revenue guidance and seeing the impacts of a slowing economy and reduced consumer participation. But they're still pretty robust in a very difficult time.

"They've been impacted adversely by the stronger dollar. Earlier they were able to do better because of their overseas sales, but much of that benefit is lost because of the stronger dollar.

"The holiday season might be little better for online retailers than for others retailers, even though it will be less robust in general this holiday season."

HAMED KHORSAND, ANALYST, BWS FINANCIAL IN LOS ANGELES