SAN FRANCISCO — Nearly every day, Amazon announces a new venture.

It just bought an online education company and introduced a payment mechanism for Internet retailers that competes with PayPal. It started selling wine for the first time in New York, updated its line of tablets, gave the go-ahead to three new comedy pilots and began a design competition for its fashion division. It is setting up mini-warehouses inside suppliers like Procter & Gamble to ship goods faster.

But one thing it will not be announcing this month: a significant profit.

Who cares? Amazon lost money in 2012, and analysts are anticipating another loss when the company releases its third-quarter results on Thursday. Yet the stock is at a record high.

Amazon shares are up around 150 percent since mid-2010, which perhaps not coincidentally was the last time the company had sizable profits. In other words, investors really decided they loved the company only when net income began to slide.

“This isn’t supposed to happen,” said William H. Janeway, an economist and venture capitalist. “It violates mainstream finance theory. Very few companies have been valued this way outside a systemic bubble.”