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Leaderboard Quarterly Scorecard Webinar Q&A Summary For Thursday, July 9, 2026 The project pipeline for data centers in North America increased by 4% in June from May, with hyperscale cloud computing firms driving the growth, according to a new report. Bernstein analysts said Friday that the data-center project pipeline last month increased by 14 gigawatts to 338 GW. A gigawatt is a measure of power and is used to describe the…

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At $247.04, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) looks compelling on a risk/reward basis.

Amazon.com Today

$245.30 -1.74 (-0.70%)

As of 10:06 AM Eastern

This is a fair market value price provided by Massive. Learn more.

52-Week Range$196.00▼

$278.56P/E Ratio29.41

Price Target$312.79

Amazon.com, Inc. NASDAQ: AMZN recently finalized an eight-tranche, $25 billion investment-grade corporate bond sale, signaling a highly strategic pivot in capital allocation. Amazon is aggressively shifting toward leveraged financing to underwrite an unprecedented $200 billion mandate for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in 2026.

Fixed-income markets readily absorbed the offering. However, a closer look at softening order books and aggressive executive liquidations exposes early signs of broader market fatigue. Investors now face a classic fundamental tradeoff. Market participants need to weigh immediate balance sheet strain against the long-term margin advantages of scaling proprietary silicon and dominating the next generation of compute cycles.

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Cheap Money, Big ComputeCapital allocation dictates market leadership. Amazon, utilizing the bond market, provides a clear window into how the business plans to fund the escalating artificial intelligence arms race against peers like Microsoft NASDAQ: MSFT. With credit ratings holding strong at AA-, Amazon locked in highly advantageous pricing across maturities ranging from 3 to 40 years. Management also explicitly signaled to underwriters that this transaction concludes all debt issuance for the 2026 calendar year, creating a defined boundary around near-term leverage.

The 40-year tranche demands specific attention from fundamentally driven investors. This specific debt priced at a mere 125 basis points over standard Treasuries. For context, basis points measure the yield spread over a baseline rate.

By securing four decades of capital at just 1.25% above the Treasury yield, Amazon effectively locks in generations of cheap financing while inflation gradually erodes the real value of that debt over time. This dynamic provides a severe cost-of-capital advantage over smaller competitors trying to build competing data center footprints.

The July offering generated $62 billion in peak demand from institutional buyers, proving that the bond market retains liquidity and the willingness to underwrite Amazon Web Services' capacity expansion. That subscription ratio is notably weaker than the $37 billion debt offering Amazon executed in March.

This cooling demand points to slight fatigue in the debt market. Fixed-income investors are becoming more selective and demanding higher yields as the total addressable market for megacap tech debt rapidly expands across the sector.

Silicon Starvation: Amazon Feasts on Proprietary ChipsTo understand the sheer scale of the $200 billion capital expenditure target for 2026, investors should evaluate the immediate impact on free cash flow. Wall Street analysts project that this infrastructure mandate will push Amazon into an estimated $40 billion negative free cash flow deficit annually across 2026 and 2027.

For a traditional retail operation, negative free cash flow of that magnitude would signal extreme operational distress. For an infrastructure provider racing to secure computing dominance, it operates as a structural moat. The cash is not vanishing into operational inefficiencies. Amazon is actively converting capital into hard assets. Capital is earmarked for aggressive data center expansion, scaling proprietary Trainium chip production, and supporting pre-IPO equity stakes in developers.

Investors tracking operating margins need to separate headline earnings from core operational performance to grasp the actual trajectory of Amazon. A significant portion of the Q1 net income beat was distorted by a $16.8 billion pre-tax gain derived from the equity investment in Anthropic. This accounting gain masks the true operational margin run rate of the core business operations.

The long-term margin offset comes from securing the physical layer of cloud computing. By holding major private stakes in developers like Anthropic, Amazon captures both sides of the trade. Amazon provides the necessary compute power while owning a piece of the underlying application. With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's NYSE: TSM 3nm foundry capacity running at full utilization, bringing Trainium production in-house gives Amazon critical pricing leverage and reduces reliance on expensive legacy graphics processing units.

C-Suite Retreat? Amazon's Insider SalesFundamentals ultimately drive valuations, but sentiment dictates near-term price action. Broad sector rotation is actively dampening momentum across the tech space. The major tech conglomerates are currently lagging the broader Nasdaq-100 index, a trend compounded by recent geopolitical risk-off pressures and growing institutional caution about the prolonged investment returns for data center hardware.

Amazon.com Stock Forecast Today12-Month Stock Price Forecast:
$312.79
25.71% Upside

Moderate Buy
Based on 60 Analyst Ratings

Current Price$248.82High Forecast$370.00Average Forecast$312.79Low Forecast$218.00Amazon.com Stock Forecast Details

Against this macroeconomic backdrop, insider trading data introduces minor friction into the bullish structural narrative. Corporate executives routinely sell shares for tax and diversification purposes, but the sheer breadth of recent liquidations warrants investor attention.

Over the trailing 90 days, insider selling totaled $51.6 million. CEO Andy Jassy offloaded over $20 million in equity during the second quarter. Senior Vice President David Zapolsky recently liquidated 18.4% of his position. Douglas Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, executed back-to-back share distributions in June and July.

These dispositions occur alongside a lack of executive open-market purchases. A put/call ratio of 0.44 shows options traders maintaining heavy bullish conviction ahead of the July 30 earnings report, but the steady selling reflects routine executive profit-taking during a peak capital cycle.

The Waiting Game: Scaling Amazon's InfrastructureThe transition from cash reserves to leveraged financing is a defining characteristic of the modern infrastructure war. Amazon is weaponizing the balance sheet, taking on targeted, low-cost debt to build physical capacity that emerging competitors cannot afford to match.

Investors monitoring Amazon at current pricing levels might view the projected free cash flow deficit as a necessary growing pain rather than a structural flaw. The core fundamental thesis relies on Amazon Web Services successfully monetizing this colossal buildout in the coming years, translating gigawatt-level power contracts into recurring enterprise revenue streams.

Those looking to allocate capital to the cloud sector may consider holding current positions as the second-quarter earnings report approaches, watching closely for updates on revenue acceleration and adjusted operating margins.

Cautious investors may prefer to wait for broader sector rotation to stabilize before taking a new position, using any macro-driven pullback as an opportunity to acquire shares of a dominant infrastructure provider at a more favorable valuation multiple.

Should You Invest $1,000 in Amazon.com Right Now?Before you consider Amazon.com, you'll want to hear this.

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Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) closed at $247.04 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.4% move from the prior day. The stock's change was more than the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.81%. On the other hand, the Dow registered a gain of 0.27%, and the technology-centric Nasdaq increased by 1.3%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the online retailer had gained 2.36% outpaced the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 0.24% and the S&P 500's gain of 1.13%.

Market participants will be closely following the financial results of Amazon in its upcoming release. The company is predicted to post an EPS of $1.82, indicating a 8.33% growth compared to the equivalent quarter last year. At the same time, our most recent consensus estimate is projecting a revenue of $196.9 billion, reflecting a 17.41% rise from the equivalent quarter last year.

For the entire fiscal year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $8.86 per share and a revenue of $826.36 billion, representing changes of +23.57% and +15.26%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Amazon. Such recent modifications usually signify the changing landscape of near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the business and profitability.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

The Zacks Rank system ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.39% higher within the past month. Amazon is holding a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) right now.

In terms of valuation, Amazon is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 27.48. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 16.7, so one might conclude that Amazon is trading at a premium comparatively.

Investors should also note that AMZN has a PEG ratio of 1.59 right now. Comparable to the widely accepted P/E ratio, the PEG ratio also accounts for the company's projected earnings growth. As of the close of trade yesterday, the Internet - Commerce industry held an average PEG ratio of 1.04.

The Internet - Commerce industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 187, putting it in the bottom 24% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the vigor of our specific industry groups by computing the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks incorporated in the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Don't forget to use Zacks.com to keep track of all these stock-moving metrics, and others, in the upcoming trading sessions.

Taking full advantage of the stock market and investing with confidence are common goals for new and old investors, and Zacks Premium offers many different ways to do both.

Featuring daily updates of the Zacks Rank and Zacks Industry Rank, full access to the Zacks #1 Rank List, Equity Research reports, and Premium stock screens, the research service can help you become a smarter, more self-assured investor.

Zacks Premium also includes the Zacks Style Scores.

What are the Zacks Style Scores? The Zacks Style Scores is a unique set of guidelines that rates stocks based on three popular investing types, and were developed as complementary indicators for the Zacks Rank. This combination helps investors choose securities with the highest chances of beating the market over the next 30 days.

Each stock is given an alphabetic rating of A, B, C, D or F based on their value, growth, and momentum qualities. With this system, an A is better than a B, a B is better than a C, and so on, meaning the better the score, the better chance the stock will outperform.

The Style Scores are broken down into four categories:

Value ScoreFinding good stocks at good prices, and discovering which companies are trading under their true value, are what value investors like to focus on. So, the Value Style Score takes into account ratios like P/E, PEG, Price/Sales, Price/Cash Flow, and a host of other multiples to highlight the most attractive and discounted stocks.

Growth ScoreGrowth investors are more concerned with a stock's future prospects, and the overall financial health and strength of a company. Thus, the Growth Style Score analyzes characteristics like projected and historic earnings, sales, and cash flow to find stocks that will see sustainable growth over time.

Momentum ScoreMomentum traders and investors live by the saying "the trend is your friend." This investing style is all about taking advantage of upward or downward trends in a stock's price or earnings outlook. Employing factors like one-week price change and the monthly percentage change in earnings estimates, the Momentum Style Score can indicate favorable times to build a position in high-momentum stocks.

VGM ScoreWhat if you like to use all three types of investing? The VGM Score is a combination of all Style Scores, making it one of the most comprehensive indicators to use with the Zacks Rank. It rates each stock on their combined weighted styles, which helps narrow down the companies with the most attractive value, best growth forecast, and most promising momentum.

How Style Scores Work with the Zacks Rank A proprietary stock-rating model, the Zacks Rank utilizes the power of earnings estimate revisions, or changes to a company's earnings outlook, to help investors create a successful portfolio.

#1 (Strong Buy) stocks have produced an unmatched +23.94% average annual return since 1988, which is more than double the S&P 500's performance over the same time frame. However, the Zacks Rank examines a ton of stocks, and there can be more than 200 companies with a Strong Buy rank, and another 600 with a #2 (Buy) rank, on any given day.

This totals more than 800 top-rated stocks, and it can be overwhelming to try and pick the best stocks for you and your portfolio.

That's where the Style Scores come in.

To have the best chance of big returns, you'll want to always consider stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 or #2 that also have Style Scores of A or B, which will give you the highest probability of success. If you're looking at stocks with a #3 (Hold) rank, it's important they have Scores of A or B as well to ensure as much upside potential as possible.

As mentioned above, the Scores are designed to work with the Zacks Rank, so any change to a company's earnings outlook should be a deciding factor when picking which stocks to buy.

A stock with a #4 (Sell) or #5 (Strong Sell) rating, for instance, even one with Scores of A and B, will still have a declining earnings forecast, and a greater chance its share price will fall too.

Thus, the more stocks you own with a #1 or #2 Rank and Scores of A or B, the better.

Stock to Watch: Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) Amazon.com is one of the largest e-commerce providers, with sprawling operations in North America, now spreading across the globe. Its online retail business revolves around the Prime program well-supported by the company's massive distribution network, which delivered at its fastest speeds ever for Prime members globally in 2025. Further, the Whole Foods Market acquisition helped Amazon establish a footprint in the physical grocery supermarket space. Amazon also enjoys a dominant position in the cloud-computing market, particularly in the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) space, thanks to Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is one of its high-margin generating businesses. Amazon's custom AI chips — Trainium and Graviton — now have a combined annual revenue run rate of over $10 billion.

AMZN is a #2 (Buy) on the Zacks Rank, with a VGM Score of B.

Additionally, the company could be a top pick for growth investors. AMZN has a Growth Style Score of B, forecasting year-over-year earnings growth of 23.6% for the current fiscal year.

One analyst revised their earnings estimate higher in the last 60 days for fiscal 2026, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate has increased $0.02 to $8.86 per share. AMZN also boasts an average earnings surprise of +11.4%.

With a solid Zacks Rank and top-tier Growth and VGM Style Scores, AMZN should be on investors' short list.

For much of the past decade, Wall Street rewarded companies that funneled excess cash into stock buybacks. That playbook is changing. The world’s largest technology companies are now directing hundreds of billions of dollars toward artificial intelligence infrastructure instead of repurchasing shares. 

At first glance, that has disappointed investors looking for immediate capital returns. Yet the shift reflects something far more important: management teams believe the return on AI investment exceeds the return on buying back their own stock. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) may be one of the clearest examples of why patient investors should pay attention.

Amazon Is Buying Chips Instead of Its Own Stock A recent BofA Global Research report comparing hyperscalers and semiconductor companies on a 12-month forward free cash flow basis illustrates the market’s current divide. Hyperscalers have seen free cash flow pressured as capital expenditures surge, while semiconductor companies are enjoying expanding cash generation as demand for AI chips continues climbing.

The relationship is straightforward. The largest technology companies have largely stopped buying their own shares because they’re buying AI hardware instead.

Amazon hasn’t repurchased any of its stock since the second quarter of 2022. Instead, the company has poured capital into expanding Amazon Web Services (AWS), building AI data centers, developing its Trainium and Inferentia AI chips, and expanding the infrastructure needed to support generative AI.

That spending isn’t unique to Amazon. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) are all committing record sums to AI infrastructure. The immediate winners have been semiconductor companies supplying the chips powering that buildout.

Ironically, that’s exactly why chipmakers have outperformed.

Amazon is ditching short-term payouts to fund a massive AI infrastructure play—and its valuation hasn't been this low in a decade. © 24/7 Wall St. The Investment Payoff Is Still Ahead Some investors have started asking why they should own Amazon if management isn’t even buying back its own stock. But investors should flip that argument around.

Management isn’t avoiding buybacks because it lacks confidence. It’s skipping buybacks because executives believe investing billions into AI infrastructure today will generate higher returns tomorrow.

Those investments won’t remain expenses forever. They become revenue-producing assets through AWS cloud services, AI model hosting, custom silicon sales, enterprise software, advertising improvements, and retail automation.

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Amazon also has multiple growth engines working simultaneously:

Growth Driver Opportunity AWS Enterprise cloud and AI workloads continue expanding Custom AI Chips Trainium and Inferentia reduce customer costs while competing with third-party accelerators Retail AI improves fulfillment efficiency and customer recommendations Advertising Higher-margin business continues growing across Amazon’s ecosystem Space Project Kuiper adds another long-term platform opportunity As those investments mature, free cash flow should begin catching up with today’s elevated capital spending.

The Valuation Looks Hard to Ignore This is where the numbers get compelling. Amazon currently trades around 29 times earnings, one of its lowest valuation multiples historically, as shares often trade for 50x or more. Despite rebounding roughly 23% from its trough earlier this year, the valuation remains historically depressed.

Even after the recovery, Amazon shares still trade roughly 14% below their 52-week high. Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts project 22% average annual earnings growth over the next five years.

Granted, heavy capital spending always carries execution risk. If AI demand cools or enterprise customers slow adoption, those returns could take longer to materialize. But Amazon has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to turn large infrastructure investments into highly profitable businesses, from AWS to its logistics network.

Key Takeaway In short, Amazon’s lack of buybacks shouldn’t be mistaken for a lack of confidence. It’s a deliberate capital allocation decision. The company believes every dollar invested in AI infrastructure today can earn more than a dollar spent shrinking the share count.

Semiconductor companies are benefiting first because they’re selling the picks and shovels. Amazon’s payoff should arrive later as those AI investments begin generating higher revenue, expanding margins, and stronger free cash flow.

For investors with a medium- to long-term time horizon, that creates an attractive setup. A company expected to grow earnings roughly 22% annually, trading near some of its lowest valuations ever, while building multiple new AI-driven businesses, doesn’t come along often. Ultimately, today’s muted valuation could prove to be one of the better entry points Amazon has offered in years.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Amazon didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Big investors just put a pile of money into Jeff Bezos' rocket company. Shouldn't that be good for space stocks?

Amazon has surpassed Walmart as the largest U.S. retailer, marking a historic milestone. Wall Street remains overly focused on AMZN's AI spending, missing the broader monetization strategy. AMZN is aggressively integrating itself into every aspect of customers' daily lives to drive future growth.

Needham has reiterated its Buy rating on Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and maintained a $300 price target, signaling continued confidence in the e-commerce and cloud computing giant.

Amazon has issued an apology after a company boss was told she could not take her breastfed baby to a business course.

Amazon (AMZN +0.84%) and the phrase "cheap stock" have historically not been associated with each other. For the better part of two decades, Amazon has traded at meaningful premiums as it has grown its dominant e-commerce empire. Now, it's building another empire in a different space: cloud computing. It has been pouring major resources into expanding its artificial intelligence computing footprint, and plans to lay out a jaw-dropping $200 billion on data center capital expenditures in 2026.

The market isn't enthusiastic about that level of spending, which is why the stock isn't trading at its usual premium valuation. As a result, I think now is the perfect time to load up on Amazon shares, as this weaker short-term sentiment is exactly what long-term investors need to gain an upper hand.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

AWS is a major part of the Amazon investment thesis Amazon's commerce growth in North America has maxed out, and the result of that is that its revenue growth has become lackluster. However, its cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is arguably a more important part of its business anyway.

During Q1, AWS accounted for 59% of Amazon's operating profits despite only making up 21% of revenue. That's because the operating margin in this segment is far higher than in e-commerce.

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However, AWS is also the fastest-growing segment within Amazon, so this produces double the effect. During Q1, AWS grew at a 28% rate -- the best in nearly four years. But that growth rate is expected to continue ramping up, as Amazon is spending big on new data centers.

CEO Andy Jassy discussed this effect in his Q1 shareholder letter, noting that the faster AWS grows, the higher its capital expenditures must be to support that growth. AWS has already experienced record-setting growth, and it's clear that more strong growth is on the horizon. Furthermore, AWS already has several customers lined up to use a large chunk of that $200 billion in new capacity it's building, making it a less risky proposition.

As for valuation, there are several ways to value a stock, but when looking at a company where earnings are often heavily affected by one-time costs or changes in the values of investments, using a cash flow-based metric is smart. Because of Amazon's high capex, gauging the stock in relation to cash from operations makes the most sense, as that metric (unlike free cash flow) ignores capital expenditures. From this standpoint, Amazon's stock is near the cheapest level it has been over the past two decades.

AMZN Price to CFO Per Share (TTM) data by YCharts.

With all that in mind, this looks like a perfect time to load up on Amazon shares.

© 24/7 Wall St / Getty Images

On CNBC this morning, David Faber walked through the bond deal of the day with Jim Cramer, and the numbers do a lot of the talking. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) is tapping the US dollar investment-grade market for $25 billion across multiple tranches, some stretching out to 40 years.

That comes on top of $54 billion Amazon already issued in March 2026, and it feeds a capex plan Andy Jassy has openly pegged at roughly $200 billion for 2026. Amazon has told underwriters it will not come back to the debt market again this year, a deliberate signal about supply management.

Why a Cash-Rich Company Is Borrowing Tens of Billions Amazon generated $139.5 billion in operating cash flow in 2025 and sits on $101.8 billion in cash. So the reflex question from a retail reader is fair. Why borrow at all? Because the capex line ate almost the entire cash flow. Capex was $131.8 billion in 2025, and $44.2 billion in Q1 2026 alone. Trailing twelve-month free cash flow has collapsed to $1.2 billion, down about 95%, because AI data centers, custom Trainium chips, and the deployment of a million-plus NVIDIA GPUs have to be paid for now, in cash, while the revenue arrives later.

Running negative free cash flow to fund capex here is a deliberate choice. Amazon is voluntarily running the pipe dry to build capacity it has already sold. OpenAI has committed to roughly 2 gigawatts of Trainium capacity beginning in 2027, and Anthropic has locked up to 5 gigawatts. The demand is contracted. The concrete and the silicon are not yet poured.

The “Last Time This Year” Signal, and Why Bondholders Care Long-term debt has already jumped from $65.6 billion at year-end 2025 to $119.1 billion by the end of Q1 2026. Interest expense followed and climbed to $800 million from $541 million a year earlier. When Amazon tells underwriters this is the last issuance of the year, it is managing supply. Every new tranche in the same name pressures spreads on the existing bonds. Guiding the market to a hard stop protects the buyers of today’s deal from being diluted tomorrow. It also anchors the trade against a rising rate backdrop. The 10-year Treasury is at 4.49%, sitting in the 93rd percentile of its 12-month range. Locking in 40-year money now, before the window narrows, is a treasury-desk decision made in real time.

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Capacity is ample. The US investment-grade market is roughly $9 trillion, and demand for high-quality duration has been sturdy. The 10Y-2Y spread is positive at 0.35%, meaning investors are still being paid to extend, and Amazon is one of the few names that can absorb $25 billion in one sitting without indigestion.

The Telecom Parallel, and When Someone Cries Uncle Faber’s historical rhyme is worth sitting with. Verizon and AT&T were once the largest corporate issuers precisely because they had the largest capex budgets. Fiber, spectrum, towers. The hyperscalers have taken that mantle. Morningstar pegs combined hyperscaler capex at $452.8 billion in 2026, more than four times what the entire US energy sector spends. Amazon alone is projected to outspend all of Big Oil.

Cramer’s read on the psychology, “too risky to not spend,” captures the underwriting logic. If AWS growth re-accelerated to 28%, its fastest in 15 quarters, and the custom chips business is running at a $20 billion-plus run rate with triple-digit growth, then not borrowing is the risky move. The ROI math still holds. It stops holding the moment demand curves bend, and that is the bond covenant every investor is really underwriting. For now, with 62 of 66 analysts bullish and a $312.91 target, the market is treating this as disciplined aggression. Read Amazon’s Q1 8-K and decide whether you agree.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Amazon didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

© jetcityimage / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) heads into the back half of 2026 with an overwhelming Wall Street consensus behind it. Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for Amazon is $323.61, implying 33.36% upside from the current price of $242.67. I rate Amazon a buy with a 90% confidence level, which qualifies as high conviction in our framework.

24/7 Wall St. Price Target Summary Metric Value Current Price $242.67 24/7 Wall St. Price Target $323.61 Upside 33.36% Recommendation BUY Confidence Level 90% Prime Day Momentum Meets a Post-Selloff Setup Amazon shares rose 6.9% in the week ending July 2, even though the stock is still down 5.4% over the past month and sits roughly 12% below its 52-week high of $278.56. Year to date, AMZN is up 5.13%, with a ten-year return of 568.81%.

The Q1 2026 report set the tone. Amazon delivered EPS of $2.78 against a $1.73 estimate, a 60.69% beat, on revenue of $181.52 billion, up 16.6% year over year. AWS grew 28%, its fastest pace in 15 quarters, and now runs at a $150 billion annualized clip. Prime Day 2026 landed in June and is baked into Q2 guidance of $194B to $199B in net sales.

The Case for $370 and Beyond Bulls have plenty to work with. Amazon’s chips business surpassed a $20 billion annual run rate with triple-digit growth, and Andy Jassy noted the company has “over $225 billion in revenue commitments for Trainium“. AWS backlog stood at $364 billion at quarter end, before a $100 billion Anthropic deal was added. Advertising crossed $70 billion in TTM revenue.

Of the 66 analysts covering AMZN, 15 rate it Strong Buy and 47 rate it Buy with zero sells. Our bull case scenario points to $370.67, a 52.75% return, if AWS AI monetization accelerates and Prime Day flows through to margin expansion.

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What Could Go Wrong The bear case centers on capital intensity. Amazon plans roughly $200 billion in 2026 capex, and TTM free cash flow already collapsed 95% to $1.2 billion. Long-term debt climbed to $119.1 billion from $65.6 billion, and Q1 net income was boosted by $16.80 billion in non-recurring Anthropic gains. Reddit thread activity around hyperscaler overinvestment underscores the sentiment risk.

Bulls would counter that Jassy has already flagged the payoff structure, saying “we have high confidence this will be monetized well, as we already have customer commitments for a substantial portion of it”. Still, if AI capex enthusiasm cools, our bear scenario projects $279.45.

I’d Buy This Pullback My final call is buy with a 24/7 Wall St. price target of $323.61 and 90% confidence. The key factor tipping the scale is AWS re-acceleration paired with the chips business hitting escape velocity. I’d be a buyer here if AWS growth stays above 25% into Q3. I’d step aside if free cash flow keeps deteriorating without visible AI monetization by year-end.

Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target 2026 $323.61 2027 $385 2028 $445 2029 $500 2030 $549.34 These projections assume AWS growth stabilizes in the 20% range and advertising continues expanding above 20%. Meaningful upside or downside could come from Trainium adoption curves and Amazon Leo’s commercial ramp.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Amazon didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

CNBC's Kate Rooney reports on news regarding Amazon's data center buildout.

Amazon is looking to raise at least $25 billion from a US dollar bond sale, marking its latest jumbo debt offering as the tech giant ramps up spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Robert Schiffman joins Ed Ludlow on "Bloomberg Tech.

Investors often turn to recommendations made by Wall Street analysts before making a Buy, Sell, or Hold decision about a stock. While media reports about rating changes by these brokerage-firm employed (or sell-side) analysts often affect a stock's price, do they really matter?

Before we discuss the reliability of brokerage recommendations and how to use them to your advantage, let's see what these Wall Street heavyweights think about Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) .

Amazon currently has an average brokerage recommendation (ABR) of 1.19, on a scale of 1 to 5 (Strong Buy to Strong Sell), calculated based on the actual recommendations (Buy, Hold, Sell, etc.) made by 57 brokerage firms. An ABR of 1.19 approximates between Strong Buy and Buy.

Of the 57 recommendations that derive the current ABR, 49 are Strong Buy and five are Buy. Strong Buy and Buy respectively account for 86% and 8.8% of all recommendations.

Brokerage Recommendation Trends for AMZN

Check price target & stock forecast for Amazon here>>>

The ABR suggests buying Amazon, but making an investment decision solely on the basis of this information might not be a good idea. According to several studies, brokerage recommendations have little to no success guiding investors to choose stocks with the most potential for price appreciation.

Do you wonder why? As a result of the vested interest of brokerage firms in a stock they cover, their analysts tend to rate it with a strong positive bias. According to our research, brokerage firms assign five "Strong Buy" recommendations for every "Strong Sell" recommendation.

In other words, their interests aren't always aligned with retail investors, rarely indicating where the price of a stock could actually be heading. Therefore, the best use of this information could be validating your own research or an indicator that has proven to be highly successful in predicting a stock's price movement.

Zacks Rank, our proprietary stock rating tool with an impressive externally audited track record, categorizes stocks into five groups, ranging from Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) to Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell), and is an effective indicator of a stock's price performance in the near future. Therefore, using the ABR to validate the Zacks Rank could be an efficient way of making a profitable investment decision.

ABR Should Not Be Confused With Zacks RankIn spite of the fact that Zacks Rank and ABR both appear on a scale from 1 to 5, they are two completely different measures.

The ABR is calculated solely based on brokerage recommendations and is typically displayed with decimals (example: 1.28). In contrast, the Zacks Rank is a quantitative model allowing investors to harness the power of earnings estimate revisions. It is displayed in whole numbers -- 1 to 5.

It has been and continues to be the case that analysts employed by brokerage firms are overly optimistic with their recommendations. Because of their employers' vested interests, these analysts issue more favorable ratings than their research would support, misguiding investors far more often than helping them.

In contrast, the Zacks Rank is driven by earnings estimate revisions. And near-term stock price movements are strongly correlated with trends in earnings estimate revisions, according to empirical research.

In addition, the different Zacks Rank grades are applied proportionately to all stocks for which brokerage analysts provide current-year earnings estimates. In other words, this tool always maintains a balance among its five ranks.

There is also a key difference between the ABR and Zacks Rank when it comes to freshness. When you look at the ABR, it may not be up-to-date. Nonetheless, since brokerage analysts constantly revise their earnings estimates to reflect changing business trends, and their actions get reflected in the Zacks Rank quickly enough, it is always timely in predicting future stock prices.

Is AMZN a Good Investment?In terms of earnings estimate revisions for Amazon, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has increased 0.4% over the past month to $8.86.

Analysts' growing optimism over the company's earnings prospects, as indicated by strong agreement among them in revising EPS estimates higher, could be a legitimate reason for the stock to soar in the near term.

The size of the recent change in the consensus estimate, along with three other factors related to earnings estimates, has resulted in a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for Amazon. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>>

Therefore, the Buy-equivalent ABR for Amazon may serve as a useful guide for investors.

Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) is planning to raise at least $25 billion through an eight-part bond offering as the company seeks additional funding for its artificial intelligence infrastructure expansion, according to various media reports.

The company disclosed in a regulatory filing that it plans to issue floating- and fixed-rate notes but did not provide the size of the offering. Bloomberg News was first to report the size of the offering and noted that the sale could be increased depending on investor demand.

The bond offering is expected to include senior unsecured debt with maturities ranging from three to 40 years, according to a term sheet cited by Reuters. Amazon told Reuters that proceeds from the sale would be used for general corporate purposes, including future capital expenditures and the repayment of upcoming debt maturities.

The planned raise follows several recent debt offerings by Amazon as major technology companies turn to capital markets to fund large-scale AI investments. The company previously raised approximately $54 billion through bond sales in the US and Europe earlier this year, followed by a $10 billion Canadian bond offering in June.

The company’s latest offering is being managed by Barclays, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) as joint book-running managers, according to Amazon’s filing.

Shares of Amazon were little changed at $243 following the reports.

Amazon logo outside an Amazon warehouse in Manchester, Britain, October 28, 2025. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

CompaniesJuly 7 (Reuters) - Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab is looking to raise at least $25 billion ​through a U.S. dollar bond sale, Bloomberg News reported ‌on Tuesday, in the company's latest push to fund its hefty AI investments.

Tech companies have been tapping debt markets and launching equity sales to ​fund their costly AI infrastructure build-out. Big Tech, including ​Amazon, Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and Meta (META.O), opens new tab, are expected to spend ⁠more than $700 billion on AI this year.

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The size of Amazon's ​offering could increase depending on investor demand, Bloomberg said, citing ​people familiar with the matter. Amazon did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

A regulatory filing by the tech giant from earlier ​in the day showed it has filed for an eight-part ​offering of floating and fixed-rate notes.

Turning to debt and equity offerings for capital ‌marks ⁠a shift for the Silicon Valley giants, who have typically relied on their cash reserves to fund their investments. The recent debt offerings have seen strong investor appetite.

Google-parent Alphabet last month ​said it would ​raise some $85 ⁠billion in an upsized equity sale. Facebook-parent Meta earlier this year sold investment-grade bonds worth $25 billion, ​following a $30 billion bond sale in October, which ​was ⁠the company's biggest ever.

Amazon said in its exchange filing that Barclays, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley are the joint ⁠book-running managers ​for the offering.

The company had in ​March targeted a $37 billion raise in a heavily oversubscribed 11-part bond sale.

Reporting by ​Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Arun Koyyur

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

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Amazon plans to raise at least $25 billion through an eight-part bond sale, as it looks to continue its massive artificial intelligence buildout, sources told CNBC's David Faber.

The company has also shared with its underwriters that it won't issue any more debt this year, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the details are private.

Amazon disclosed plans for the capital raise in a filing with the SEC on Tuesday, but it didn't disclose the dollar amount.

Bloomberg was first to report the value of Amazon's bond sale.

The debt sale comes after Amazon raised roughly $54 billion in bonds earlier this year in the U.S. and Europe, followed by a $10 billion bond raise in Canada in June.

Tech companies have turned to the capital markets to help fund their aggressive spending plans on AI infrastructure. Nvidia, Oracle, Alphabet and Meta have also announced debt raises and issued stock in recent months.

Amazon has projected its capital expenditures will reach $200 billion this year, up from $131 billion in 2025, with most of the spending going toward data centers, chips and other equipment. CEO Andy Jassy has tried to reassure investors skeptical of its plans by arguing AI is a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" that requires big bets.

An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that proceeds from the latest bond sale will be used for general corporate purposes, which could include supporting investments, funding future capital expenditures and debt repayment.

"We regularly evaluate our operating plan and make financing decisions, like issuing bonds, accordingly," the spokesperson said.

— CNBC's Jim Forkin contributed reporting to this story.

Read more CNBC tech newsMeta's push into cloud computing means Wall Street has to prepare for lower marginsChip stocks that notched record rallies in second quarter start Q3 with a dudPlayStation will end physical disc production for new games in 2028Employers who laid off workers citing AI are already starting to regret it

Anthropic and OpenAI are preparing for their initial public offerings (IPOs). Both companies filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make sure everything was in order, but are waiting to go public with the details. OpenAI is reportedly considering waiting until 2027, but Anthropic, which has made huge product advances in 2026, could come to market sooner.

Anthropic's last equity raise in May valued the company at $965 billion, surpassing OpenAI's most recent valuation of $852 billion back in March. The AI company reported a $47 billion revenue run rate, driven by the success of its Claude Code agent and its various iterations and implementations. Indeed, Anthropic has seen massive market share gains in business adoption of its models since the start of 2025, according to data from business fintech Ramp.

Investors looking to get a stake in the business before its public debut have a few options as they wait for more details on when the AI stock will be available for direct purchase.

Image source: Getty Images.

Buy a fund that holds shares There are a few publicly traded closed-end funds with shares of Anthropic.

The Destiny Tech100 (DXYZ +2.66%) launched in 2024 with the aim of building a 100-company portfolio of the top venture-backed private technology companies. As of the end of the first quarter, the portfolio held 36 companies, and Anthropic was its largest holding, accounting for 18% of its net asset value. Given the massive increase in its value since the end of March in its last equity raise, the Anthropic stake could now account for an even greater portion of the portfolio.

Other key holdings in the Destiny Tech100 portfolio include exposures to Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 0.99%), known as SpaceX, and OpenAI. The fund may continue to hold its SpaceX investment, even though SpaceX stock now trades publicly. However, it could have the opportunity to liquidate its assets and reinvest in more pre-IPO companies over the next year.

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Another option is Ark Invests' Ark Venture Fund. The closed-end fund aims to invest in 25 to 50 public and private companies that are creating "disruptive innovation." Its top holding is SpaceX, but 6.33% of its portfolio is invested in OpenAI, and 4.6% is invested in Anthropic as of the end of June.

There are some downsides to investing in a closed-end fund investing in private companies. First of all, these funds charge high fees. Destiny charges 2.5%, and Ark charges a net fee of 2.9%. Those fees can eat into returns. The second downside is that it's hard to know the value of what you're buying. While a large business like Anthropic will provide periodic updates on its progress despite no legal requirement to do so, finding those details for smaller start-ups isn't so easy. That makes these investments significantly more volatile. The Ark Venture Fund also offers limited redemption and exchange options and can only be bought on certain platforms, which adds liquidity risk.

Buy some of Anthropic's largest shareholders and partners Another option for investors seeking slightly more transparency and lower fees is to invest in publicly traded companies with substantial stakes in Anthropic.

Amazon (AMZN +0.61%) made a $4 billion investment in Anthropic in 2023, bringing the AI lab's development to its cloud computing platform Amazon Web Services (AWS). It added another $4 billion in 2024 and $5 billion more earlier this year, with the potential to invest up to $20 billion later.

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As of March 31, before its most recent investment, Amazon said its stake in Anthropic was worth about $74 billion. That stake could be worth much more at this point after the most recent funding round increased Anthropic's valuation by roughly 2.5 times. If Amazon's stake is worth about $200 billion, that's roughly 7.5% of the company's current market cap.

Plus, investors gain exposure to additional upside from Anthropic's relationship with Amazon's cloud computing business, which is bolstering its AI services and custom chip business. That includes a $100 billion commitment to spend on AWS over the next decade.

Alphabet (GOOG +2.44%) (GOOGL +1.87%) is another big investor in Anthropic. It also started investing in 2023, committing about $3 billion total through 2025. It added $10 billion earlier this year with the potential to add $30 billion more. Alphabet is limited to owning no more than 15% of Anthropic, and its current investments appear to push it right up against that limit.

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At a 14% stake in the business, Alphabet's Anthropic shares are worth about $135 billion, about 3% of Alphabet's total value. It's also worth noting that Alphabet has a significant stake in SpaceX. Anthropic has also made a huge $200 billion commitment to spend on Google Cloud over the next five years, and it could be a major customer for the company's custom AI accelerator, the tensor processing unit (TPU).

Both publicly traded tech giants offer compelling ways to gain exposure to Anthropic while buying stellar core businesses at good values, given today's stock prices.

If you’re looking for an e-reader that allows you to buy expensive bestsellers from your local independent bookshops, your research will inevitably point you to Rakuten’s Kobo eReader. But, as it turns out, this reputation is largely based on outdated methods for buying Kobo books, involving signing up for a Kobo account from bookshops’ websites.

While there are a handful of indie bookshops nationwide still supporting Kobo through this website method, most of that kind of support ended years ago. I’ve found it impossible to buy e-books for my recently purchased Kobo from any of my local, beloved bookshops.

I want to support these bookshops, and I don’t want to own a physical copy of every book I read. I also want to use an e-reader rather than an Android or iOS app on a phone or tablet because e-readers offer long battery life, digital ink, and low-glare screens. These allow me to read comfortably for hours, even outdoors, similar to a physical book.

One solution for Kobo owners, originally promised for 2025, was a partnership with Bookshop.org, an Amazon competitor that supports local bookshops with every order. Bookshop.org currently offers e-books through its mobile app for iOS and Android.

That partnership was at first promised for 2025 and then delayed to 2026, and for a brief time earlier this year, looked like it would be delayed indefinitely.

After Bookshop.org changed the wording on its webpage referencing Kobo support, removing “2026” and replacing it with “sometime in the future,” I reached out to get a status update.

Bookshop.org’s founder and CEO, Andy Hunter, told me in an emailed reply that progress with Kobo has now been made. The webpage has been updated, saying once again that support is expected to roll out “later this year.”

“The Kobo integration is something both Kobo and Bookshop.org want to make happen,” Hunter said.

The hold-up has been both on the business side and engineering to ensure it is “done in such a way that respects publisher requirements for digital rights management. It took us some time to hammer out the business terms and allocate the necessary engineering resources,” he explained.

Hunter, whose company also competes with Amazon by selling physical books, says his engineers have been focused on improving the mobile device app, which launched about 15 months ago.

Their attention is now being returned to Kobo support, albeit the timing remains vague. “We have recently settled on business terms with Kobo, and we are confident the collaboration is going to happen, but can’t promise a specific launch date until the engineering work is further along,” Hunter said.

Obviously, whether or not Bookshop.org ever figures out Kobo support, Kobo users don’t have to buy all their books from Japanese-based e-commerce giant Rakuten. Kobo users can read a large selection of digital rights management (DRM)-free books on their readers, and a large selection (though not all) of library books offered through Overdrive. Independent e-book store Books.com also delivers DRM-protected books in a format that Kobo supports, it says.

Another solution, should your goal be to support local bookshops with e-book purchases, is to use a different e-reader. An Android reader like Boox or Meebook that supports the Google Play app store should be able to download Bookshop.org’s app, the bookseller says.

Still, like countless other Kobo owners, I’m rooting for the Bookshop.org integration to materialize. Supporting local independent bookstores was my main motivation for buying this particular e-reader, misled as I was by my online research (and the confident advice of ChatGPT).

Now that I own a Kobo Libra Colour, I really do love its reading screen, fast response, and long battery life. I also continue to hold onto my six-year-old Kindle for the same reasons.

But I also love the local, small-business bookstores with their personalized recommendations, support of local authors, and sheer love of books. Here’s hoping that the top e-commerce site that supports local shops, Bookshop.org, will soon actually support the popular Kobo device, which claims 12 million users in 190 countries.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Many energy stocks rallied this year as the Middle East conflict drove up oil prices and the power-hungry cloud and AI markets gobbled up massive amounts of power. However, one former market darling that didn't participate in that rally was Vistra (VST 1.44%), the top power generation and retail electricity provider in the United States.

Vistra's stock has declined about 6% year to date and nearly 20% over the past 12 months. Let's see why many investors shunned Vistra -- and why it might be a compelling buy.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why did Vistra's rally end? Vistra owns a wide range of natural gas, nuclear, coal, solar, and battery energy storage facilities. Its retail subsidiaries -- including TXU Energy, Dynegy, Homefield Energy, Ambit, and other regional leaders -- sell electricity to roughly five million customers.

Vistra's stock hit an all-time high of $217.02 on Sept. 22, 2025. That marked a 556% gain over its previous two years. At the time, the AI market's explosive growth generated strong tailwinds for its electrification business, and it was rerated as an AI infrastructure stock.

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But as of this writing, Vistra's stock trades at about $150. Two challenges weighed down its stock. First, PJM Interconnection, which manages the power grid across the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest, proposed new rules to cap electricity capacity prices. Second, Vistra decided to shut down a major portion of its Moss Landing battery storage facility, which suffered a series of fires in early 2025, rather than recommission the damaged plants.

Why is Vistra still a reliable long-term investment? Those headwinds made Vistra less appealing, but it's weathered plenty of regulatory challenges and plant outages (including the Texas winter storm of 2021) since its 2017 IPO. It's also still locked into major data center deals with Meta (META 4.80%) and Amazon (AMZN +0.55%).

From 2025 to 2028, analysts still expect its revenue and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to grow at CAGRs of 15% and 16%, respectively. With an enterprise value of $70.7 billion, Vistra trades at just three times this year's revenue and ten times this year's adjusted EBITDA.

Those lower valuations indicate it's shed the "AI premium" it gained after striking multi-billion dollar deals with Meta and Amazon, but that makes it an even more compelling buy today. Its forward yield of 0.6% might seem paltry, but its low payout ratio of 15% gives it plenty of room for future dividend hikes. It's also bought back 30% of its shares over the past five years. Therefore, if you're looking for a reliable energy stock that gives you plenty of exposure to the booming AI market, Vistra checks all the right boxes.

Leo Sun has positions in Amazon and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Vistra. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Amazon's massive capex spending and concerns about consumer spending patterns may have soured some investors on the stock. Net sales growth has increased by double-digit percentages.

Amazon (AMZN +0.55%) certainly makes the short list of the best-performing stocks so far this century. Over the past two decades, shares have risen 12,350% (as of June 29). You would have over $1.2 million today if you made a hypothetical $10,000 investment in late June 2006.

The "Magnificent Seven" stock currently trades 13% off its peak, which can be viewed as an attractive entry point to acquire a disruptive enterprise with a strong position in online shopping, digital advertising, and cloud computing.

It's a good idea not to rush, though. Don't buy Amazon shares until you read this first.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Pouring money into AI investments When Amazon announced its 2025 fourth-quarter financial results in February, what caught the market's attention was that the company upped its guidance for capital expenditures (capex). It plans $200 billion in capex in 2026, up from $131 billion last year.

The business is one of the hyperscalers; its Amazon Web Services (AWS) segment is the leading cloud computing platform in the world. The company is seeing robust demand from AWS customers, with a backlog of $364 billion as of March 31 (excluding the $100 billion Anthropic deal). This is leading to a surge in capital deployment.

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"This primarily relates to AWS and generative AI, as we invest to support strong customer demand," chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky said on the first-quarter 2026 earnings call when discussing his company's capex during the quarter. The business is investing aggressively to build data centers that power the AI revolution.

This is hitting Amazon's free cash flow (FCF). It posted just $1.2 billion in FCF in the past 12 months, down a notable 95% from the year-ago period. And the consensus view among sell-side analysts is that the business will report negative FCF of $10 billion in 2026.

Should the market give this business the benefit of the doubt? "We believe it to be a massive opportunity with the potential to drive long-term revenue and free cash flow," Olsavsky said on the call when referring to the AI landscape. Management clearly believes all this spending will benefit Amazon well into the future as it builds capacity that it can monetize.

Investors have to ask themselves if they're willing to buy what management is selling. That's the trillion-dollar question. Given the track records of founder Jeff Bezos and current CEO Andy Jassy, it's easy to give Amazon the benefit of the doubt. This company has always prioritized its customers' needs, adopted an extremely long time horizon, and didn't give in to Wall Street's short-term pressures.

This operational DNA is why the stock has performed so well. However, what makes things more complicated is that Amazon has raised more than $80 billion in debt so far in 2026. And we still have more than half of the year left.

It wouldn't be surprising if the market demands a higher return on this AI spending sooner rather than later.