MELI down 11%

For anyone here in MELI -

Amazon reported looking at upping their presence in Brazil, sending MELI share price down today.

Shares of a several e-commerce companies listed in the U.S. and Brazil are falling on speculation Amazon.com Inc. may soon expand into the South American country. An earlier report by Bloomberg said the tech giant is recruiting for a number of positions in Brazil, leading some to believe it has its sights set on Latin America’s largest market.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-12/amazon-co…

Not sure this warrants >10% drop, but wouldn’t say it is a screaming buy right now either.

On a different note, I always found it curious that a company named Amazon didn’t already have a bigger presence in Brazil…

Kevin

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This is probably a more “official” news report, from a brazilian news source.

http://www.valor.com.br/empresas/5153686/amazon-comeca-vende…

Portugese doesn’t translate perfect into Spanish, but basically it states that after being in Brazil for 5 years, Amazon is going to increase their offerings to more than books. Starting with electronics on the 18th, and expect to expand the list by the end of the year. Eventually, long term goal is to make all the product categories available that it has in the United States. They will use strong marketing campaigns to start these sales.

Kevin

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For what it is worth, I added some shares of MELI with today’s drop.

Yesterday, my top 6 portfolio positions in order were NVDA, AAPL, SHOP, MELI, UBNT, and LYV.
After adding some MELI shares today, the order has shifted to NVDA, AAPL, MELI, SHOP, UBNT, and LYV.

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I have been waiting to add more. Am I too scared of the specter of Amazon? I should be, but probably too early. I should add.

“For what it is worth, I added some shares of MELI with today’s drop.”

News affecting MELI.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3300700-mercadolibre-falls-ama…

When AMZN threatens a company’s sector it is not usually a one day affair. Look at WBA, COST, KR, ULTA for some examples.

Rob

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It doesn’t seem to be a bargain to me either by any metric.

I like them company and its potentional but I’ll wait for even better prices. This will likely take awhile to shake out.

I don’t know how Amazon will be able to replicate their business model in South America. I spent about 5 years living in Lima, Peru and it’s just a different world down there. Hardly anyone even has a mailbox, and they certainly don’t get daily mail. Also, the poverty level is extremely high in most of the country.

My wife’s family orders on Amazon all the time, and has things shipped to our house in Georgia for us to bring their stuff whenever we come to visit. They use MercadoLibre more like ebay or craigslist than Amazon, honestly.

I sold something on MercadoLibre a few years ago, and the guy came and met me and paid me in counterfeit USD. By the time I realized it, he had disappeared into the crowd and was gone. There was no recourse on MercadoLibre.

Overall, it is a highly cash-based economy (i.e., they use Uber, but still pay the drivers the fare in cash) and although it is slowly changing, I just don’t see how it is ever going to be anything like the digital economy in the USA.

That’s the main reason I have stayed away from MELI. Well that, plus there are too many other enticing options out there from my perspective.

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