When Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) reported its third quarter earnings back in October, it included a restatement of past earnings because of accounting issues. When CEO Patrick Byrne went around predicting that the company would achieve profitability, a lot of observers yawned: This guy has been threatening a positive EBITDA every year since the company went public and, to the delight of short-sellers, it's been a classic case of over-promise, under-deliver.In May, Byrne predicted that 2008 would be a profitable year but for the first nine months of 2008, the company lost $13.6 million.
Of course we haven't seen Overstock's fourth quarter results yet, but if the data from ComScore is any indication, they'll have a hard time propelling the company to profitability. According to ComScore, Overstock.com saw its Web traffic decline 16% for the holiday season. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) was the big winner among internet retailers with an increase of 7%.
Given the high expectations set by Byrne's ever ebullient "forward-looking statements" the fourth quarter results seem likely to disappoint.
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