Amazon Eyes Record High
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Wall Street investors are finally doing what analysts have been recommending all along: buying Amazon.com Inc.
The shares of the e-commerce and cloud computing giant rose as much as 1.2% to $187.29 on April 8, putting the stock on track to surpass its closing high of $186.57 set in July 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Amazon.com Inc. ranks No. 19 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriers in North America and No. 1 on the Top 50 Global Freight list.
While fellow mega-cap technology behemoths including Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Nvidia Corp. have breached record highs in recent months, Amazon has lagged the pack as it nursed itself back from a post-pandemic selloff of about 57%.
The stock has long been the most loved equity by brokers, with 67 analysts urging investors to buy and the remaining two with a hold-equivalent rating. However, investors have looked for more than just analysts’ recommendations to come back around.
To win over investors, the company has been relentlessly cutting costs and restructuring its business, while demand for AI is also starting to boost its bottom line. Amazon Web Services, its once fast-growing cloud unit, also showed signs of re-acceleration in the last quarter, assuaging some fears of a demand slowdown.
Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak said that that upside to retail profits is giving more confidence in the e-commerce giant’s ability to deliver strong EBIT and free cash flow in the coming years.
Nowak hiked the price target on the stock to $215 from $200 in a note dated Sunday, implying a 16% increase from the last close. Analysts on average have a target of about $209, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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