Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is a stock that seems to defy conventional wisdom about how a stock is, or should be, valued. Fundamental investors, like yours truly, recognize and respect the importance of the earnings and price relationship. Moreover, I will be so bold as to emphatically state that in the long run profitability (earnings) will be the primary determinant of a businesses' fair value, any business. However, my bold statement is predicated on the longer run. In the short run it is often a truth that all bets are off.
This leads me to a few words about market efficiency. Academics supportive of modern finance theory argue for an efficient market hypothesis (EMH). Investopedia offers the following definition of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (emphasis added mine):