Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management started selling Alphabet (GOOG -0.66%) (GOOGL -0.73%) in the fourth quarter of 2025 while continuing to hold a large stake in Amazon (AMZN -0.82%) and other tech stocks. Ackman also bought a new position in Microsoft. In a post on X dated May 16, 2026, Ackman explained that he sold the Alphabet position to free up cash for Microsoft. But he also apparently sees better prospects in Amazon.

Pershing Square's mid-year update to investors reiterated its expectation that Amazon will grow its earnings at more than 20% annually, driven by opportunities in artificial intelligence (AI) and continued e-commerce growth.

While Pershing Square trimmed its Amazon position in Q2, the position still accounts for about 10% of the firm's reported assets on its SEC Form 13F, making it the fourth-largest holding. Bill Ackman's thesis behind the investment continues to play out almost exactly as he predicted when he originally bought the stock in April 2025.

Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital. Image source: Getty Images.

Amazon is performing as expected Pershing Square's investment case for Amazon is centered on the company's two growth engines: Amazon Web Services (AWS) and e-commerce. At the time of the initial investment, Ackman expected rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) tools on AWS to potentially reaccelerate growth. And that's exactly what happened.

AWS reported 17% year-over-year revenue growth in Q2 2025 when Ackman initially bought the stock. In the most recent quarter, growth accelerated to 37% -- its fastest pace in more than four years.

Amazon's total revenue rose 20% year over year in the second quarter, while operating income jumped 43% to $27 billion. That also supports Ackman's view that the retail business has room for margin expansion.

Amazon has been investing in robotics and tightening inventory management to lift retail profitability -- and those improvements are showing up in operating income growth. Over time, operating profits could continue to climb, aided by advertising momentum and ongoing warehouse automation.

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Ackman expects Amazon to deliver high double-digit earnings growth Amazon stock has been weighed down by aggressive increases in capital spending to support the data center build-out. As a result of this spending, Amazon's free cash flow dipped to negative $8.8 billion in the second quarter.

Pershing Square sold about a quarter of its Amazon stake in Q2, but that doesn't appear to reflect a bearish view on the stock. Ackman's current view on Amazon was revealed in the firm's mid-year update released in August, in which it expressed belief that the market is underestimating Amazon's resilience and "significant growth runway." Ackman expects new data center capacity to be absorbed by AI inference workloads and earn attractive returns over time.

The firm likely sold some of its Amazon position to make room for other new positions in Visa, Mastercard, S&P Global, and Netflix. But this doesn't mean Ackman has turned bearish on the cloud computing leader.

Ackman still sees Amazon compounding earnings at over 20% annually, which is consistent with the Wall Street consensus. The stock trades around 22x forward earnings, which is not expensive for this level of earnings growth, and could support market-beating gains assuming Amazon delivers on those expectations.

John Ballard has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Mastercard, Microsoft, Netflix, S&P Global, and Visa. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

ToplineA coalition of Amazon Teamsters, the Alliance for a Greater New York and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union rallied at New York City Hall to push passage of the Mayor Zohran Mamdani-backed “Delivery Protection Act” that would require Amazon to employ all last-mile delivery drivers in the city rather than rely on subcontractors.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 3: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivers a speech to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States of America at City Hall on July 3, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Anna Connors - Pool/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Key FactsThe Delivery Protection Act would prohibit Amazon, FedEx and other logistics companies from using third-party contractors for last-mile deliveries and core warehouse services throughout the five New York City boroughs.

Joining the Teamsters in support of the Act are the AFL-CIO-affiliated New York City Central Labor Council and a supermajority of city council members.

Opposition comes from a broad-based business coalition—Amazon, FedEx, logistics and trucking firms, all five borough chambers of commerce, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, Tech: NYC, the Supply Chain Federation, the Trucking Association of New York, the Five Borough Jobs Campaign and others.

A study commissioned by the Five Borough Jobs Campaign estimated passage would increase annual delivery costs to New York households by $664 and threaten more than 10,000 city workers.

With the bill pending a City Council vote, supporters have intensified their efforts to push the vote forward after Mayor Mamdani threw his support behind it—calling Amazon’s contractor-based delivery model exploitative and a danger to NYC workers, drivers and pedestrians.

Key BackgroundFirst introduced last September by Queens council member Tiffany Cabán and carried over into 2026, the Delivery Protection Act would require a license to operate any last-mile facilities in the city and mandate that all delivery and warehouse hubs operate with employees not contract workers. Supporters of the Act claim that Amazon uses its third-party Delivery Service Providers model to “underpay workers, ignore unsafe working conditions, and shield itself from accountability when it breaks the law or endangers communities.”

Crucial Quote“Corporations like Amazon build billion-dollar business models by insulating themselves from accountability through a system of exploitative subcontracting,” said Mayor Mamdani. Calling the Delivery Protection Act a commonsense regulation to protect workers, he added, “It’s time to end the subcontracting model that puts profits over people and build an economy that works for working New Yorkers.”

Amazon Defends Its DSP Business ModelAmazon argues the Delivery Protect Act would negatively impact more than 40 Delivery Service Providers and threaten over 5,000 jobs at these small business partners. In testimony submitted in April, the company said that DSP drivers earn an average of nearly $24 per hour in wages, with full-time drivers receiving health care coverage and paid time off that exceed city minimums. Many DSP firms also offer additional benefits, including retirement accounts and tuition reimbursement. Amazon also cited more than $2.5 billion invested in safety initiatives since 2019, including an in-person Last Mile Driver Academy that has trained over 180,000 drivers, camera-equipped delivery vans and more than 800 electric cargo bikes deployed in Manhattan and Brooklyn. If the Act passes, Amazon warned it may be forced to relocate its 10 distribution centers outside New York City, resulting in slower delivery times to customers.

Chief CriticThe Wall Street Journal Editorial Board argues that the Delivery Protect Act is a test case for the Teamsters and its allies to eliminate subcontracted delivery work nationwide. The board points to United Parcel Service laying off tens of thousands of workers, attributing the cuts in part to the cost of its 2023 Teamsters labor contract. It claims Amazon’s flexible and efficient third-party DPS network is now delivering many of the packages that unionized UPS drivers would previously have handled. Noting that the National Labor Relations Act prohibits subcontracted and independent contractors to unionize, the board wrote, “Abolishing the independent contracting model has been a longtime goal of the political left, and they don’t mind if they run over the little guy in the process.”

TangentAmazon has been at odds with the New York political establishment before. In 2019, Amazon scuttled plans to open a second NYC headquarters in Queens after opposition from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, state senators and local activists—a move that cost the city an estimated 25,000 high-paying jobs. At the time, Governor Andrew Cuomo blasted the decision, stating “a small group of politicians put their own narrow political interests above their community.”

Further ReadingAmazon Workers Rally at NYC City Hall as Delivery Bill Gains Momentum (Sourcing Journal)

Mamdani Wants to Deliver Amazon to the Teamsters (Wall Street Journal)

A Fight Brews Between Mamdani and Amazon Over Delivery Workers (New York Times)

It takes a lot for Elon Musk to admit he's wrong. A year ago, the leader of SpaceX and Tesla said that Anthropic would never be a leader in artificial intelligence (AI). Today, he has admitted this was incorrect, with Anthropic the fastest-growing AI start-up in the world, with annualized revenue estimated at double that of its competitor OpenAI.

For Musk, this means potential AI infrastructure revenue at SpaceX, which just signed a nice commitment from Anthropic. But there is another megacap technology company that may benefit even more from Anthropic's meteoric rise: Amazon (AMZN -0.94%).

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Massive cloud commitments
Amazon made an early bet to become the lead infrastructure backer for Anthropic, likely after its cloud competitor, Microsoft, did the same with OpenAI. Amazon has invested over $10 billion in Anthropic and has committed to investing a total of $33 billion in the start-up. In return, Anthropic is going to utilize Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its primary cloud provider, spending $100 billion or more with Amazon.

This could be highly meaningful for AWS, especially if Anthropic keeps up this growth trajectory and soon clears $100 billion in annualized revenue, eventually reaching hundreds of billions a year. Last quarter, AWS revenue grew 37% year over year to an annualized run rate of $169 billion. A lot of this growth is due to Anthropic.

On top of this revenue growth, Amazon holds an equity stake in Anthropic estimated at over 10% (the exact figure is not known today). If Anthropic goes public in the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history -- which it is reportedly preparing for later this year -- Amazon's stake could be worth something like $250 billion.

Elon Musk. Image source: The White House.

Is Amazon stock a buy because of Anthropic?
The appreciation of Amazon's stake in Anthropic will be a nice boost for Amazon, but the real value comes from Anthropic's commitments to AWS, including Amazon's homegrown computer chips. This will set the standard for other AI start-ups and Fortune 500 enterprises, leading to even more revenue growth in the years ahead.

Amazon management believes that AWS can eventually grow to $1 trillion in revenue. It may take a decade or longer for that to happen, but it gives the business a massive growth runway. Right now, Amazon trades at a market cap of $2.86 trillion. If Amazon grows its AWS revenue to $1 trillion, the stock may be worth multiples of that on its own, not even including the e-commerce and advertising businesses.

For its relationship with Anthropic and more, Amazon stock is worth buying right now.

Brett Schafer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Microsoft, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

An Amazon box moves along a conveyor belt at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Robbinsville, New Jersey, U.S., December 1, 2025. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

CompaniesAug 14 (Reuters) - Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab on Friday reinstated binding arbitration for its U.S. customers while also barring them ​from seeking class-action lawsuits, making it more difficult for users ‌to address grievances in court.

In emails on Friday, Amazon said the changes are effective immediately and customers agree to the terms by continuing to use the company's services. ​Often, companies alert customers to upcoming changes to their terms of ​service weeks in advance.

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Previously, Amazon said customers should pursue legal claims ⁠in court in Washington state, where Amazon is based. Five years ​ago, Amazon revoked binding arbitration after facing tens of thousands of costly individual ​cases.

"We determined that reinstating the arbitration clause will offer customers a fast, cost-effective way to resolve disputes while still giving them the option of going to small claims court," ​a spokesperson said in a statement.

In 2021, Amazon was flooded with around ​75,000 arbitration claims from customers claiming its Alexa service was recording them without their ‌consent. ⁠It was part of a tactic some law firms use to overwhelm corporations with arbitration claims, forcing them to pay millions of dollars in fees to start the process and causing administrative headaches.

Amazon said in its new terms ​that 25 or ​more arbitration cases ⁠relating to the same matter in a six-month period would be considered a "mass arbitration" and would be settled in "batches ​of at least 25."

Courts have generally sided with corporations ​over language ⁠in their terms of service that dictate when and how customers can pursue legal recourse. Arbitration cases are settled privately before a third-party adjudicator, meaning disputes ⁠and ​any settlement typically are not made public.

Disputes ​with Amazon, including class-action suits, begun prior to Friday are not impacted by the new terms.

Reporting ​by Greg Bensinger in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Rosalba O'Brien

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

Greg Bensinger joined Reuters as a technology correspondent in 2022 focusing on the world's largest technology companies. He was previously a member of The New York Times editorial board and a technology beat reporter for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He also worked for Bloomberg News writing about the auto and telecommunications industries. He studied English literature at The University of Virginia and graduate journalism at Columbia University. Greg lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children.

Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 14th, 2026

Caerus Investment Advisors LLC lowered its holdings in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 33.2% in the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 9,415 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after selling 4,671 shares during the period. Amazon.com makes up about 0.8% of Caerus Investment Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 18th largest holding. Caerus Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $1,961,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in AMZN. MilWealth Group LLC increased its stake in Amazon.com by 79.0% during the 4th quarter. MilWealth Group LLC now owns 179 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $41,000 after acquiring an additional 79 shares during the period. Lifetime Wealth Management P.C. bought a new stake in shares of Amazon.com during the 4th quarter valued at $45,000. Elkhorn Partners Limited Partnership lifted its position in shares of Amazon.com by 900.0% during the 4th quarter. Elkhorn Partners Limited Partnership now owns 200 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $46,000 after acquiring an additional 180 shares during the period. Fairway Wealth LLC grew its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 95.6% during the 4th quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC now owns 221 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $51,000 after purchasing an additional 108 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Prudent Man Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 87.7% during the 4th quarter. Prudent Man Investment Management Inc. now owns 229 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $53,000 after purchasing an additional 107 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.20% of the company’s stock.

Trending Headlines about Amazon.com Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:

Positive Sentiment: Amazon is positioning Alexa as an AI-powered shopping assistant that can identify missing groceries from a refrigerator photo, create a shopping list and potentially direct purchases before customers visit competitors such as Walmart. The initiative could strengthen Amazon’s grocery and retail ecosystem. Amazon Wants Alexa to Own the Shopping List Before Walmart Ever Sees It Positive Sentiment: AWS remains a major bullish catalyst. Recent reports highlighted 36.7% year-over-year AWS growth, a roughly $496 billion backlog and substantial demand for AI infrastructure. Amazon has also made OpenAI cybersecurity models available through Amazon Bedrock, supporting cloud-service adoption. Amazon Stock Eyes AWS Growth as Amazon’s $220 Billion Spending Plan Expands Positive Sentiment: Analyst coverage remains favorable, with one report citing a potential 32% upside and no sell ratings among 62 analysts. Investment activity also included Appaloosa nearly doubling its Amazon position earlier this year, signaling continued institutional confidence. Amazon’s Price Target Says Plus 32 Percent and Not a Single Analyst Says Sell Neutral Sentiment: Amazon is reportedly a leading bidder for Decart AI, which could add valuable AI talent and technology for AWS, retail operations and advertising. However, the financial terms and outcome remain uncertain. What Could Amazon Gain From Leading the Decart AI Bidding? Negative Sentiment: Twitch’s decision to enroll creators by default in sharing livestream content for Amazon AI training has triggered strong user backlash. The controversy could create reputational, regulatory and creator-retention risks. Amazon Will Train on Twitch Streamers’ Content by Default Unless They Opt Out Negative Sentiment: Amazon’s 2026 capital-expenditure forecast has risen to approximately $220 billion as it expands AI and cloud capacity. Investors are concerned that borrowing and heavy spending may reduce near-term free cash flow, particularly while Amazon does not pay a dividend. Amazon Raises 2026 AI Spending to 220 Billion Dollars Negative Sentiment: New York City labor activists and Teamsters are urging passage of legislation that could require delivery workers to be directly employed, potentially increasing Amazon’s labor costs and disrupting its last-mile delivery model. Amazon Teamsters and Allies Picket City Hall for the Delivery Protection Act Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades AMZN has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Benchmark boosted their price target on Amazon.com from $370.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Truist Financial increased their price objective on shares of Amazon.com from $320.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their target price on shares of Amazon.com from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. KeyCorp boosted their target price on shares of Amazon.com from $335.00 to $350.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Finally, Citizens Jmp reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and set a $315.00 price target on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifty-six have issued a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $322.56.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on Amazon.com

Insiders Place Their Bets In other Amazon.com news, CEO Andrew R. Jassy sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $263.42, for a total value of $5,268,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,205,766 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $581,042,879.72. This represents a 0.90% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Douglas J. Herrington sold 6,370 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $262.39, for a total value of $1,671,424.30. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 486,527 shares in the company, valued at $127,659,819.53. The trade was a 1.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 62,650 shares of company stock worth $16,535,457. Company insiders own 8.90% of the company’s stock.

Amazon.com Price Performance AMZN stock opened at $265.13 on Friday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $247.57 and a 200 day simple moving average of $238.49. The stock has a market cap of $2.86 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.33, a P/E/G ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.45. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 1 year low of $196.00 and a 1 year high of $287.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 0.87.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN – Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $3.93. The firm had revenue of $200.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $197.03 billion. Amazon.com had a net margin of 17.44% and a return on equity of 18.00%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.68 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.05 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Amazon.com Profile (Free Report)

Amazon.com, Inc is a diversified technology and retail company best known for its e-commerce marketplace and broad portfolio of consumer and enterprise services. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company launched as an online bookseller and expanded into a global retail platform that sells products directly to consumers and provides a marketplace for third-party sellers. Over time Amazon has grown beyond retail into areas including cloud computing, digital media, devices and logistics.

Key businesses and offerings include Amazon’s online marketplace and fulfillment services, the Amazon Prime membership program (which bundles expedited shipping with streaming and other benefits), Amazon Web Services (AWS) which supplies on-demand cloud computing and storage to businesses and public-sector customers, and a range of content and advertising services such as Prime Video and Amazon Advertising.

See Also Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com Asian Market Circuit Breakers Hit Stocks, Not AI Demand Riot Platforms Re-Wires the Ledger for a $9B AI Power Play Nebius Just Exploded 34% on Blowout Earnings—Is It Time to Buy? Joby’s Defense Pivot Accelerates With $500M Resonant Sciences Deal Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AMZN? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN – Free Report).

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When you think of artificial intelligence (AI) companies, Amazon (AMZN -0.80%) may not be a name that jumps to the top of the list. However, with its cloud computing business delivering an incredible 37% year-over-year growth rate, I think it's a force to be reckoned with. While there may be companies that are growing faster than that, Amazon's growth rate is picking up, and it could stay hot for several years based on the company's massive investments in AI computing infrastructure.

This could lead to Amazon being one of the biggest winners in the next phase of the AI arms race, and if you don't own shares already, it isn't too late to buy.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Amazon Web Services is a top reason to own the stock Amazon Web Services (AWS) is Amazon's cloud computing division. It's the No. 1 competitor by market share, with about 28% last quarter. In Q2, it accounted for 21% of the company's total revenue, but 60% of its operating profits. That's an incredible contribution from a small business unit, and with AWS growing rapidly, Amazon as a whole will benefit.

While the other two cloud computing titans -- Alphabet's Google Cloud (15% market share) and Microsoft Azure (20% market share) -- reported faster growth than AWS, what investors must understand is that AWS' growth rate is rapidly accelerating. In Q3 2025, AWS' growth rate was 20%. In Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, its year-over-year growth accelerated to 24% and 28%, respectively. In Q2, the growth rate jumped further to 37%, and it likely isn't done there.

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Amazon is spending the most of any AI hyperscaler on computing infrastructure this year, with capital expenditures expected to total around $220 billion. All of that spending will eventually convert into increased computing capacity, which will in turn lead to increased revenue. A larger revenue base will allow Amazon to invest even more in data center infrastructure, creating a growth flywheel that should send Amazon stock soaring, as long as there is demand for compute.

Fortunately for Amazon shareholders, it's pretty clear that there is.

During its Q2 conference call, CEO Andy Jassy noted that the company doesn't have enough capacity to meet all available demand in 2026, and that 2027 is also shaping up to be that way. As a result, there's already demand for capacity that it won't have online until 2028. Having that type of visibility into sales growth that's almost a year and a half out bulks up the Amazon investment thesis. 

Amazon's growth rate will remain strong over the next few years, driven by its robust cloud services offerings. As a result, I think Amazon is one of the best AI stocks to buy now and hold for the long term.

Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 13th, 2026

FinArc Investments Inc. purchased a new position in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN – Free Report) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 6,214 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock, valued at approximately $1,294,000. Amazon.com comprises approximately 1.2% of FinArc Investments Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 27th largest position.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. TrueWealth Financial Partners bought a new stake in Amazon.com in the first quarter valued at about $5,253,000. Pathway Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in Amazon.com by 4.2% in the first quarter. Pathway Wealth Management LLC now owns 24,775 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $5,160,000 after buying an additional 1,000 shares during the period. Norris Financial Group LLC bought a new position in Amazon.com during the first quarter worth about $3,560,000. Front Row Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Amazon.com by 0.3% during the first quarter. Front Row Advisors LLC now owns 15,134 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $3,152,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Western Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in Amazon.com by 25.3% during the first quarter. Western Wealth Management LLC now owns 189,362 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $39,439,000 after buying an additional 38,238 shares during the last quarter. 72.20% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Amazon.com Price Performance Shares of AMZN opened at $267.28 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.87, a current ratio of 1.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. Amazon.com, Inc. has a twelve month low of $196.00 and a twelve month high of $287.20. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.88 trillion, a P/E ratio of 21.50, a P/E/G ratio of 1.81 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a 50 day moving average of $247.35 and a 200-day moving average of $238.30.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $3.93. Amazon.com had a net margin of 17.44% and a return on equity of 18.00%. The business had revenue of $200.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $197.03 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.68 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.05 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Key Amazon.com News Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:

Positive Sentiment: AWS remains the primary bullish catalyst. Amazon reportedly raised its 2026 capital-expenditure forecast to approximately $220 billion from $200 billion as cloud demand accelerates; AWS revenue grew 36.7% year over year to $42.2 billion, while its backlog reached $496 billion. Much of Amazon’s 2027 cloud capacity is already committed, improving visibility into future growth. Amazon Stock Eyes AWS Growth as Spending Plan Expands Positive Sentiment: Two OpenAI cybersecurity models, Daybreak Red and Daybreak Blue, launched on Amazon Bedrock, with AWS security teams already using them to identify vulnerabilities. The announcement reinforces the investment case for Bedrock and AWS as enterprise AI adoption expands. Amazon Is Powering OpenAI’s Cyber Models Neutral Sentiment: Amazon expanded its delivery Locker network to more than 750 locations across over 500 U.S. college campuses. The initiative could support convenience and customer engagement, although its near-term financial effect is likely limited. Amazon Expands Locker Pickup to U.S. Colleges Negative Sentiment: Investors are increasingly focused on whether the $220 billion AI spending program will generate adequate returns. The sharp increase from $132 billion in 2025 raises depreciation, financing, and execution risks, particularly if AI demand or monetization slows. Amazon Raises 2026 AI Spending Negative Sentiment: Twitch confirmed that Amazon will use livestream content to train AI models by default unless creators opt out. The policy has triggered backlash from streamers and could create reputational, creator-retention, and regulatory risks. Amazon Will Train on Twitch Content by Default Negative Sentiment: New York City lawmakers are backing legislation that would require large delivery operators to directly employ couriers rather than rely on subcontractors. Amazon warns the proposal could put more than 5,000 jobs at risk and increase delivery costs. Mamdani Takes on Amazon Over Delivery Workers Negative Sentiment: Broader market pressure also weighed on AMZN as investors rotated away from high-valued technology shares and awaited inflation data. Recent insider and founder selling, including Jeff Bezos’ large planned sale, may add sentiment pressure, although the transactions were reportedly made under prearranged trading plans. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades AMZN has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $320.00 price objective (up from $315.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Mizuho set a $330.00 price objective on shares of Amazon.com and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Roth Capital restated a “buy” rating and set a $325.00 price objective on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Monday, August 3rd. Finally, Scotiabank reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $325.00 target price (up from $275.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifty-six have given a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $322.56.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on AMZN

Insider Transactions at Amazon.com In other Amazon.com news, CEO Matthew S. Garman sold 15,467 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $263.40, for a total value of $4,074,007.80. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 14,159 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,729,480.60. The trade was a 52.21% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Andrew R. Jassy sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $263.42, for a total transaction of $5,268,400.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,205,766 shares in the company, valued at $581,042,879.72. This trade represents a 0.90% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 77,867 shares of company stock worth $20,532,092. 8.90% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Amazon.com Company Profile (Free Report)

Amazon.com, Inc is a diversified technology and retail company best known for its e-commerce marketplace and broad portfolio of consumer and enterprise services. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company launched as an online bookseller and expanded into a global retail platform that sells products directly to consumers and provides a marketplace for third-party sellers. Over time Amazon has grown beyond retail into areas including cloud computing, digital media, devices and logistics.

Key businesses and offerings include Amazon’s online marketplace and fulfillment services, the Amazon Prime membership program (which bundles expedited shipping with streaming and other benefits), Amazon Web Services (AWS) which supplies on-demand cloud computing and storage to businesses and public-sector customers, and a range of content and advertising services such as Prime Video and Amazon Advertising.

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NEXT HEADLINE »BankChampaign National Association Makes New Investment in Amazon.com, Inc. $AMZN

Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 13th, 2026

Arete Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 6.0% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 86,584 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,928 shares during the quarter. Amazon.com accounts for 1.1% of Arete Wealth Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 22nd biggest position. Arete Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $18,028,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Gryphon Financial Partners LLC grew its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 7.5% during the 1st quarter. Gryphon Financial Partners LLC now owns 73,085 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $15,221,000 after purchasing an additional 5,125 shares during the period. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. raised its holdings in Amazon.com by 1.7% in the first quarter. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. now owns 303,862 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $63,285,000 after buying an additional 5,104 shares during the period. Narwhal Capital Management raised its holdings in Amazon.com by 2.3% in the fourth quarter. Narwhal Capital Management now owns 216,606 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $49,997,000 after buying an additional 4,854 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its position in Amazon.com by 21.0% during the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 24,653,228 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $5,690,463,000 after buying an additional 4,275,942 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Weaver Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Amazon.com by 13.6% during the fourth quarter. Weaver Capital Management LLC now owns 39,264 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $9,063,000 after buying an additional 4,713 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 72.20% of the company’s stock.

Amazon.com Price Performance AMZN opened at $267.28 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $2.88 trillion, a P/E ratio of 21.50, a PEG ratio of 1.81 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a 50-day moving average of $247.35 and a 200-day moving average of $238.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 1.03. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 1-year low of $196.00 and a 1-year high of $287.20.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $3.93. The business had revenue of $200.61 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $197.03 billion. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 18.00% and a net margin of 17.44%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.68 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.05 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Amazon.com News Roundup Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:

Positive Sentiment: AWS remains the primary bullish catalyst. Amazon reportedly raised its 2026 capital-expenditure forecast to approximately $220 billion from $200 billion as cloud demand accelerates; AWS revenue grew 36.7% year over year to $42.2 billion, while its backlog reached $496 billion. Much of Amazon’s 2027 cloud capacity is already committed, improving visibility into future growth. Amazon Stock Eyes AWS Growth as Spending Plan Expands Positive Sentiment: Two OpenAI cybersecurity models, Daybreak Red and Daybreak Blue, launched on Amazon Bedrock, with AWS security teams already using them to identify vulnerabilities. The announcement reinforces the investment case for Bedrock and AWS as enterprise AI adoption expands. Amazon Is Powering OpenAI’s Cyber Models Neutral Sentiment: Amazon expanded its delivery Locker network to more than 750 locations across over 500 U.S. college campuses. The initiative could support convenience and customer engagement, although its near-term financial effect is likely limited. Amazon Expands Locker Pickup to U.S. Colleges Negative Sentiment: Investors are increasingly focused on whether the $220 billion AI spending program will generate adequate returns. The sharp increase from $132 billion in 2025 raises depreciation, financing, and execution risks, particularly if AI demand or monetization slows. Amazon Raises 2026 AI Spending Negative Sentiment: Twitch confirmed that Amazon will use livestream content to train AI models by default unless creators opt out. The policy has triggered backlash from streamers and could create reputational, creator-retention, and regulatory risks. Amazon Will Train on Twitch Content by Default Negative Sentiment: New York City lawmakers are backing legislation that would require large delivery operators to directly employ couriers rather than rely on subcontractors. Amazon warns the proposal could put more than 5,000 jobs at risk and increase delivery costs. Mamdani Takes on Amazon Over Delivery Workers Negative Sentiment: Broader market pressure also weighed on AMZN as investors rotated away from high-valued technology shares and awaited inflation data. Recent insider and founder selling, including Jeff Bezos’ large planned sale, may add sentiment pressure, although the transactions were reportedly made under prearranged trading plans. Insider Transactions at Amazon.com In other Amazon.com news, SVP David Zapolsky sold 9,270 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.53, for a total transaction of $2,489,273.10. Following the sale, the senior vice president directly owned 41,190 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,060,750.70. This represents a 18.37% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Douglas J. Herrington sold 6,370 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $262.39, for a total transaction of $1,671,424.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 486,527 shares in the company, valued at approximately $127,659,819.53. The trade was a 1.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 77,867 shares of company stock valued at $20,532,092 over the last quarter. Insiders own 8.90% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several research firms have recently issued reports on AMZN. Evercore reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Canaccord Genuity Group lifted their target price on shares of Amazon.com from $300.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Rosenblatt Securities upped their price target on shares of Amazon.com from $332.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $320.00 price target (up from $315.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. Finally, Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Friday, July 31st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifty-six have issued a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $322.56.

View Our Latest Research Report on AMZN

Amazon.com Company Profile (Free Report)

Amazon.com, Inc is a diversified technology and retail company best known for its e-commerce marketplace and broad portfolio of consumer and enterprise services. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company launched as an online bookseller and expanded into a global retail platform that sells products directly to consumers and provides a marketplace for third-party sellers. Over time Amazon has grown beyond retail into areas including cloud computing, digital media, devices and logistics.

Key businesses and offerings include Amazon’s online marketplace and fulfillment services, the Amazon Prime membership program (which bundles expedited shipping with streaming and other benefits), Amazon Web Services (AWS) which supplies on-demand cloud computing and storage to businesses and public-sector customers, and a range of content and advertising services such as Prime Video and Amazon Advertising.

Recommended Stories Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com GE Vernova’s AI Power Boom Faces a Profit Test Cardinal Health Earnings: Can Perfection Get Priced In Twice? Nebius’ Q2 Beat Shows the AI Bottleneck Is Capacity, Not Demand Legacy Jet Builders Stall While Embraer Accelerates to New Highs Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AMZN? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN – Free Report).

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The price action on Amazon (AMZN -2.09%) stock may leave investors scratching their heads. The 20% net sales growth is an improvement over 2025, when growth rates were barely above double digits.

However, despite an improved performance, its forward P/E ratio has fallen to just 22, a level that would have been unimaginable in Amazon's earlier years. Although we do not know for sure why it has become so cheap, one aspect of its financials may have made some investors hesitant to buy the stock.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

The likely reason Amazon's valuation is so low The factor most likely making investors skittish about Amazon stock is its capital expenditures (capex).

In the report for the second quarter of 2026, Amazon announced that it would increase capex spending for the year to $220 billion, up from the $200 billion estimate in the prior quarter. The company said it needed additional funding to cover the cost of memory chips, whose prices shot up amid an unprecedented shortage.

This comes after Amazon spent almost $132 billion in 2025, and the strain on its balance sheet has begun to show. The company holds about $123 billion in liquidity, which investors might typically view as a sign of balance-sheet strength.

Still, free cash flow has fallen to -$7.6 billion over the trailing 12 months (TTM). This is down from the $18.2 billion in TTM free cash flow in the year-ago quarter, indicating that Amazon's spending has begun to strain its financials.

Due in part to those expenditures, long-term debt also increased by 96% over the previous year to almost $129 billion. Considering the change in its financial situation, investors might be questioning whether Amazon can recoup this massive investment in AI infrastructure.

Moreover, amid the aforementioned 22 forward P/E ratios, investors may overlook that Amazon also trades at a 22 trailing P/E ratio. This implies that earnings growth will struggle, which is probably not a reassuring sign for investors right now.

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Nonetheless, Amazon stock hit a new all-time high following the Q2 earnings release. Also, accelerating net sales growth is a sign that it is recouping its investment, particularly given the 37% increase in its cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Furthermore, one could argue that Amazon's aforementioned negative free cash flow is actually strong, given the staggering level of capex spending. That could induce investors to see the 22 forward P/E ratio as an overreaction and convince them to add to their Amazon positions.

Amazon's stock going forward Admittedly, Amazon's unprecedented capex spending has strained its balance sheet and turned its free cash flow negative. When also considering the added borrowing, it could cause Amazon significant financial pain if the company's investment in itself does not pay off. This heavy capex spending is the most likely explanation for its low valuation.

Fortunately, Amazon's net sales growth has accelerated, and the company's continued growth and high liquidity have long attracted investors to the stock. Those factors might be a compelling reason to buy the consumer discretionary stock at 22 times forward earnings.

Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 11th, 2026

Atreides Management LP lifted its stake in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN – Free Report) by 38.6% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 953,560 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 265,761 shares during the quarter. Amazon.com comprises approximately 4.0% of Atreides Management LP’s portfolio, making the stock its 6th biggest position. Atreides Management LP’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $198,598,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of AMZN. Encore Global Management LP purchased a new position in Amazon.com during the 1st quarter worth $3,436,000. Opal Capital LLC raised its holdings in Amazon.com by 92.4% during the first quarter. Opal Capital LLC now owns 26,834 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $5,589,000 after purchasing an additional 12,889 shares in the last quarter. Kanen Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Amazon.com in the first quarter valued at about $444,000. Sunbelt Securities Inc. lifted its position in Amazon.com by 1.9% in the first quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 88,838 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $18,502,000 after purchasing an additional 1,658 shares during the period. Finally, Guardian Partners Inc. boosted its holdings in Amazon.com by 10.4% in the 1st quarter. Guardian Partners Inc. now owns 23,088 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $4,820,000 after purchasing an additional 2,182 shares in the last quarter. 72.20% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Amazon.com Price Performance AMZN opened at $278.09 on Tuesday. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 1 year low of $196.00 and a 1 year high of $287.20. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $246.69 and its 200 day simple moving average is $237.78. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.00 trillion, a PE ratio of 22.37, a P/E/G ratio of 1.83 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 1.03.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.82 by $3.93. The firm had revenue of $200.61 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $197.03 billion. Amazon.com had a net margin of 17.44% and a return on equity of 18.00%. Amazon.com’s revenue for the quarter was up 19.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.68 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.05 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Amazon.com In related news, SVP David Zapolsky sold 9,270 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $268.53, for a total value of $2,489,273.10. Following the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 41,190 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,060,750.70. This trade represents a 18.37% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, VP Shelley Reynolds sold 2,363 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $262.38, for a total value of $620,003.94. Following the sale, the vice president directly owned 119,780 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,427,876.40. This trade represents a 1.93% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 77,867 shares of company stock worth $20,532,092. 8.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Amazon.com News Summary Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:

Positive Sentiment: Amazon’s recent earnings breakout is attracting continued investor interest. Renewed AWS growth and accelerating AI demand could support earnings momentum and a post-earnings drift higher. Amazon: A Post-Earnings Drift Candidate Positive Sentiment: Analysts and market commentators point to accelerating cloud revenue as a potential long-term driver that could help Amazon grow beyond its recently achieved $3 trillion market capitalization. Amazon Just Joined the $3 Trillion Club Positive Sentiment: A reported institutional and retail “Power Inflow” alert provided a short-term bullish trading signal, helping reinforce buying momentum in AMZN. Amazon Shares Up After Key Trading Signal Positive Sentiment: Amazon’s Zoox robotaxi subsidiary began paid rides in Las Vegas after receiving a federal commercial exemption, marking a meaningful commercialization milestone for the company’s autonomous-vehicle investment. Zoox to Begin Paid Rides Positive Sentiment: Amazon Pharmacy is offering eligible Medicare patients access to certain weight-loss drugs for $50 per month, potentially expanding customer engagement and the company’s healthcare presence. Amazon Pharmacy Rolls Out Low-Cost Weight-Loss Drugs Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on AMZN. Robert W. Baird set a $310.00 target price on Amazon.com and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Benchmark lifted their price target on Amazon.com from $370.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Telsey Advisory Group set a $335.00 price objective on Amazon.com and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. HSBC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $310.00 price target on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. Finally, Citigroup reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $350.00 price objective (up from $325.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifty-six have issued a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Amazon.com has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $322.56.

View Our Latest Stock Analysis on AMZN

Amazon.com Company Profile (Free Report)

Amazon.com, Inc is a diversified technology and retail company best known for its e-commerce marketplace and broad portfolio of consumer and enterprise services. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company launched as an online bookseller and expanded into a global retail platform that sells products directly to consumers and provides a marketplace for third-party sellers. Over time Amazon has grown beyond retail into areas including cloud computing, digital media, devices and logistics.

Key businesses and offerings include Amazon’s online marketplace and fulfillment services, the Amazon Prime membership program (which bundles expedited shipping with streaming and other benefits), Amazon Web Services (AWS) which supplies on-demand cloud computing and storage to businesses and public-sector customers, and a range of content and advertising services such as Prime Video and Amazon Advertising.

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Leading e-commerce and tech company Amazon (AMZN +0.81%) has been rallying recently, after posting strong quarterly earnings numbers, hitting a new all-time high of more than $287 along the way. It's now up around 19% for the year, and its market cap is hovering around $3 trillion. The business has been doing exceptionally well as its growth rate has been solid, and its growth opportunities are plentiful.

But has the stock gotten too expensive, or can it still be a good buy at its current levels?

Image source: Getty Images.

Amazon's cloud business has been taking off A key reason investors have been bullish on Amazon's stock of late has been due to its popular cloud platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS). In the most recent quarter, which ended on June 30, AWS achieved its fastest growth rate in 18 quarters -- 37%. Not only is that important from a growth angle, but AWS also generates the best margins for the business; thus, a strong performance will also boost the bottom line. Of the $27.5 billion in operating income that Amazon posted last quarter, $16.6 billion, or 61%, came from AWS.

Despite spending heavily on artificial intelligence (AI), investors are becoming bullish that Amazon's efforts are paying off; CEO Andy Jassy says that "our AI and chips businesses each eclipsed run rates of more than $25 billion." All in all, the business is doing exceptionally well, with Amazon beating expectations on top and bottom lines for this most recent quarter.

Although it's one of the most valuable stocks in the world, based on its profits, it doesn't appear to be too expensive, as its price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple is just 22.

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Is Amazon stock really as cheap as it looks? At a P/E of 22, Amazon stock looks like a bargain buy given that the average stock on the S&P 500 trades at a P/E multiple of 24. There is, however, a bit of an asterisk with that. While its earnings soared from $18.2 billion to $62.6 billion, a big reason was that due to other income of $53.4 billion, which Amazon says is mainly from investments in AI company Anthropic. Without that, its earnings would be significantly lighter, and the stock's valuation wouldn't be as low.

Amazon, however, does still trade at a reasonably modest forward P/E multiple of around 23, which is based on analyst projections for how it will do in the year ahead. While its earnings may be inflated due to investment gains, the tech stock is by no means absurdly overvalued, as the business has been doing incredibly well.

For long-term investors, Amazon can still be an excellent stock to buy and hold, as it stands to benefit significantly from AI.

Shares of e-commerce and cloud computing leader Amazon.com (AMZN -0.14%) jumped 14% in July, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

For context, the S&P 500 index was essentially flat -- it slipped about 0.1% -- and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index declined 3.2%.

Through Thursday, Aug. 6, Amazon stock has gained 18% in 2026. The S&P 500 has returned 13.4% over this period.

Image source: Getty Images.

Strong Q2 results On July 31, Amazon stock jumped 15.3%, following the release of its second-quarter results the prior afternoon.

Amazon reported quarterly revenue of $200.6 billion, up 20% year over year. This result easily beat Wall Street's consensus estimate of about $196.8 billion. Net income was $62.6 billion, or $5.75 per share, up 242% from $18.2 billion, or $1.68 per share, in the year-ago period.

The quarter's net income included a non-operating pre-tax "other income" of $53.4 billion, primarily from the company's investments in Anthropic, an artificial intelligence (AI) model maker best known for its Claude family of large-language models.

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Segment revenue results:

North America sales increased 16% to $116.2 billion. International sales increased 15% to $42.2 billion. Amazon Web Services (AWS) -- Its cloud computing services business's sales increased 37% to $42.2 billion. This performance was driven by strong demand for AI capabilities. Operating income results:

North America's operating income was $9.1 billion, up 21% year over year. International's operating income was $1.7 billion, up 13%. AWS's operating income was $16.6 billion, up a whopping 63%. "AWS is booming, growing 36.7% year-over-year in Q2 -- our fastest growth in 18 quarters -- and our AI and Chips businesses each eclipsed run rates of more than $25 billion," said CEO Andy Jassy in the earnings release. Jassy also called out the company's record delivery speeds in the first half of the year: "Over 40% more items delivered same-day or overnight, with Grocery and Everyday Essentials growing meaningfully faster than the rest of the business." Lastly, Advertising had another strong quarter with 26% year-over-year growth, he added.

Looking ahead In the third quarter, Amazon expects revenue between $197.0 billion and $202.0 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 9% to 12%. Excluding the impact of Prime Day in both 2025 and 2026, the company said third-quarter growth would be nearly 400 basis points (0.4%) higher.

Operating income is expected to be between $22.5 billion and $26.5 billion, compared with $17.4 billion in the prior year's quarter. This would equate to growth of 29% to 52%.

In Q3 2025, operating income included two special charges: $2.5 billion related to a legal settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and $1.8 billion in estimated severance costs. Without these charges, operating income would have been $21.7 billion.

Key Takeaways Amazon's planned insider share sale followed record highs after strong second-quarter results and guidance.Amazon posted 20% sales growth as AWS accelerated, while boosting 2026 AI and data-center spending.AMZN continues seeing strength across cloud, retail, advertising and Prime despite premium valuation. Jeff Bezos has filed to sell nearly $4 billion worth of Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) shares, days after the company posted a blowout second-quarter report. AMZN shares fell more than 2% on Aug. 4 after Bezos’ filing, but had already rallied to a record close of $284.02 the previous day and roughly 20% since the July 30 earnings report, pushing the market cap past $3 trillion.

The pre-arranged sale, executed under a trading plan adopted in November 2025, triggered a brief pullback in the stock. Yet the filing looks far more like a scheduled, tax-efficient liquidity event tied to a record share price than a signal about the company's outlook, and investors focused on fundamentals have every reason to stay the course, treating any near-term weakness as an opportunity rather than a warning sign.

Q2 Strength Sets the ToneAmazon's second-quarter net sales rose 20% to $200.6 billion, while operating income jumped 43% to $27.5 billion. AWS, the cloud unit, delivered its fastest growth in 18 quarters, with sales up 37% to a $169 billion annualized run rate and segment operating income nearly doubling.

For the third quarter, the company guided net sales toward $197-$202 billion and operating income between $22.5 billion and $26.5 billion, noting that growth would look meaningfully higher excluding the calendar shift of Prime Day into June. That guidance reflects continued momentum rather than deceleration, keeping the earnings narrative constructive into year-end as management prioritizes long-term infrastructure investment over near-term margin optimization across its fastest-growing segments. Amazon raised its full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance to roughly $220 billion, up from about $200 billion, to fund continued AI infrastructure and data-center spending.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AMZN's 2026 earnings is pegged at $13.11 per share, indicating a 82.85% increase from the figure reported in the year-ago quarter.

Cloud, Retail and Prime Fuel the Next LegAWS' AI and custom chips businesses each now exceed a $25 billion annualized run rate, growing triple-digit percentages, aided by expanding Trainium adoption from labs including Anthropic and OpenAI and the general availability of Graviton5. Amazon Bedrock keeps broadening its foundation-model roster while customer spending accelerates. On the retail side, Amazon Now ultra-fast delivery expanded into dozens of new cities, Alexa for Shopping usage nearly doubled, and Amazon Business crossed $60 billion in annualized gross sales. Prime Video drew strong viewership from new originals and live sports, reinforcing the flywheel that keeps Prime members engaged and spending across categories, including grocery and everyday essentials, growing faster than the core business, while record delivery speeds strengthen customer loyalty across Amazon's broader retail ecosystem.

Valuation and Competitive LandscapeNow, let's look at the value Amazon offers investors at current levels. AMZN is trading at a premium with a forward 12-month P/S of 3.27X compared with the Zacks Internet - Commerce industry's 1.7X, reflecting a stretched valuation.

AMZN’s P/S F12M Ratio Depicts Stretched Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

In cloud infrastructure, Amazon's primary rivals remain Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) -owned Google, Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) and Oracle (ORCL - Free Report) . Google keeps expanding Gemini-powered cloud tools, Microsoft leverages its deep Azure-OpenAI partnership, and Oracle keeps scaling database and AI workloads at pace, yet AWS' reaccelerating growth and expanding order backlog suggest Amazon is holding its own against Google, Microsoft and Oracle even as all three continue investing aggressively across the same booming cloud infrastructure race worldwide, underscoring that Amazon's premium multiple is being earned through steady execution rather than momentum alone.

Shares of Amazon have returned 30.6% in the past six-month period, outperforming peers, the broader Zacks Retail-Wholesale sector’s increase of 5.7% and the S&P 500 index’s return of 10.8%.

AMZN’s 6-Month Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Why Investors Should Stay InvestedAmazon's overall fundamentals look sturdy heading into the back half of 2026. AWS reacceleration, a broadening AI and chips business, disciplined operating leverage in North America, and steady advertising growth of 26% year over year support the third-quarter guidance range. Elevated capital expenditure reflects investment in data-center and AI capacity that management expects to convert into future revenues rather than a drag on the business.

Against this backdrop, Bezos's routine, pre-scheduled share sale should not be read as a fundamental red flag. With cloud, retail, advertising and Prime all contributing to growth simultaneously, Amazon still offers investors a diversified, innovation-driven growth story, and the current setup favors buying dips or staying invested through the next several quarters rather than reacting to a single scheduled insider transaction tied to a record close, since the underlying business momentum remains firmly intact heading into 2027. Amazon currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 6th, 2026

Aureus Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN – Free Report) by 4.0% during the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 282,835 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 10,761 shares during the quarter. Amazon.com comprises 3.9% of Aureus Asset Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 4th biggest holding. Aureus Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $58,906,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. MilWealth Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 79.0% during the fourth quarter. MilWealth Group LLC now owns 179 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $41,000 after acquiring an additional 79 shares in the last quarter. Lifetime Wealth Management P.C. acquired a new position in shares of Amazon.com during the fourth quarter worth approximately $45,000. Elkhorn Partners Limited Partnership lifted its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 900.0% in the 4th quarter. Elkhorn Partners Limited Partnership now owns 200 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $46,000 after purchasing an additional 180 shares in the last quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 95.6% in the 4th quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC now owns 221 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $51,000 after purchasing an additional 108 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Prudent Man Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Amazon.com by 87.7% in the 4th quarter. Prudent Man Investment Management Inc. now owns 229 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $53,000 after purchasing an additional 107 shares during the period. 72.20% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Headlines Impacting Amazon.com Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:

Positive Sentiment: AWS and AI remain the primary bullish catalysts. Coverage highlights accelerating AWS growth, strong demand for AI infrastructure, and management’s view that much of AWS capacity is committed through 2028. Investors are increasingly seeing Amazon’s AI spending translate into cloud revenue and profits. Amazon’s AI Story Is Bigger Than You Think Positive Sentiment: Analyst sentiment remains favorable. Amazon was included in Zacks’ Strong Buy and momentum lists, while reports cited analyst upgrades and price targets above the current trading range. The bullish case is supported by second-quarter revenue of $200.6 billion, 19.6% year-over-year growth, and a significant earnings beat. Wall Street’s Bullish Views on Amazon Positive Sentiment: Zoox is moving toward commercialization. Amazon’s self-driving unit received approval for driverless vehicles and plans to begin paid robotaxi rides in Las Vegas on August 10. The launch provides a potential long-term growth option beyond retail, cloud, and advertising. Amazon’s Zoox to Start Paid Robotaxi Rides Neutral Sentiment: Amazon’s Anthropic investment boosted reported results. Second-quarter net income included approximately $53.4 billion in largely non-operating gains tied to Anthropic investments. The gain validates the strategic value of Amazon’s AI holdings, but it is not recurring operating profit and may make underlying earnings comparisons less clear. Amazon’s Anthropic-Related Gain Negative Sentiment: Jeff Bezos’ planned sale is weighing on sentiment. The founder disclosed plans to sell 15 million shares worth roughly $4.1 billion under a pre-arranged trading plan. Amazon executive Douglas Herrington also sold 1,000 shares, adding to supply concerns after the stock reached record levels. Jeff Bezos Amazon Share Sale Negative Sentiment: Legal and spending risks remain. An appeals court allowed Perplexity’s AI shopping agents to access Amazon’s platform, while New Jersey sued Amazon over alleged anticompetitive treatment of delivery contractors. Separately, the company’s large AI data-center commitments and capital-spending plans raise concerns about returns and free cash flow. Amazon.com Stock Performance NASDAQ AMZN opened at $272.65 on Thursday. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 1 year low of $196.00 and a 1 year high of $287.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 0.87. The firm has a market cap of $2.94 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.93, a PEG ratio of 1.85 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $246.31 and a 200-day moving average price of $236.97.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.82 by $3.93. Amazon.com had a net margin of 17.44% and a return on equity of 18.00%. The company had revenue of $200.61 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $197.03 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.68 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.05 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, CEO Andrew R. Jassy sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $263.42, for a total value of $5,268,400.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,205,766 shares in the company, valued at $581,042,879.72. The trade was a 0.90% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Matthew S. Garman sold 15,467 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $263.40, for a total value of $4,074,007.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 14,159 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,729,480.60. This represents a 52.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 77,867 shares of company stock worth $20,532,092 in the last ninety days. 8.90% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and set a $320.00 price objective (up from $315.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. KeyCorp boosted their target price on shares of Amazon.com from $335.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $335.00 target price (up from $330.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Finally, UBS Group set a $318.00 target price on shares of Amazon.com and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Fifty-six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Amazon.com has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $322.56.

Read Our Latest Stock Report on AMZN

Amazon.com Company Profile (Free Report)

Amazon.com, Inc is a diversified technology and retail company best known for its e-commerce marketplace and broad portfolio of consumer and enterprise services. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company launched as an online bookseller and expanded into a global retail platform that sells products directly to consumers and provides a marketplace for third-party sellers. Over time Amazon has grown beyond retail into areas including cloud computing, digital media, devices and logistics.

Key businesses and offerings include Amazon’s online marketplace and fulfillment services, the Amazon Prime membership program (which bundles expedited shipping with streaming and other benefits), Amazon Web Services (AWS) which supplies on-demand cloud computing and storage to businesses and public-sector customers, and a range of content and advertising services such as Prime Video and Amazon Advertising.

Further Reading Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com SpaceX: Love the Company, But the Stock Is a Harder Call Ulta’s Growth Is Real, But So Are the Risks BWX Technologies Is Turning the AI Power Problem Into a Nuclear Growth Story Meta’s Earnings Drop Shows Wall Street Wants More Than Ad Growth

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Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 6th, 2026

B&D White Capital Company LLC raised its position in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 4.6% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 737,383 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after buying an additional 32,438 shares during the quarter. Amazon.com comprises 19.0% of B&D White Capital Company LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its largest position. B&D White Capital Company LLC’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $153,575,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in AMZN. State of Wyoming increased its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 1.8% in the 1st quarter. State of Wyoming now owns 17,377 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $3,619,000 after acquiring an additional 311 shares during the last quarter. GSG Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Amazon.com by 1.7% in the first quarter. GSG Advisors LLC now owns 25,699 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $5,352,000 after purchasing an additional 428 shares during the period. Envision Financial Transparency LLC acquired a new position in Amazon.com in the first quarter worth $458,000. Parker Investment Management LLC increased its stake in Amazon.com by 4.1% during the first quarter. Parker Investment Management LLC now owns 2,827 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $589,000 after purchasing an additional 112 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wealthspire Retirement LLC increased its stake in Amazon.com by 4.5% during the first quarter. Wealthspire Retirement LLC now owns 22,903 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $4,770,000 after purchasing an additional 986 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.20% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity In other news, VP Shelley Reynolds sold 2,363 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $262.38, for a total value of $620,003.94. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president owned 119,780 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,427,876.40. This represents a 1.93% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Matthew S. Garman sold 15,467 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $263.40, for a total transaction of $4,074,007.80. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 14,159 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,729,480.60. This represents a 52.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 77,867 shares of company stock worth $20,532,092 over the last ninety days. 8.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of research firms have recently issued reports on AMZN. Roth Capital restated a “buy” rating and issued a $325.00 price target on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Monday. KeyCorp increased their price objective on shares of Amazon.com from $335.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Truist Financial lifted their target price on Amazon.com from $320.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. TD Securities raised Amazon.com to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 13th. Finally, Monness Crespi & Hardt increased their price target on Amazon.com from $315.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Fifty-six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Amazon.com presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $322.56.

Get Our Latest Report on Amazon.com

Key Headlines Impacting Amazon.com Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:

Positive Sentiment: AWS and AI remain the primary bullish catalysts. Coverage highlights accelerating AWS growth, strong demand for AI infrastructure, and management’s view that much of AWS capacity is committed through 2028. Investors are increasingly seeing Amazon’s AI spending translate into cloud revenue and profits. Amazon’s AI Story Is Bigger Than You Think Positive Sentiment: Analyst sentiment remains favorable. Amazon was included in Zacks’ Strong Buy and momentum lists, while reports cited analyst upgrades and price targets above the current trading range. The bullish case is supported by second-quarter revenue of $200.6 billion, 19.6% year-over-year growth, and a significant earnings beat. Wall Street’s Bullish Views on Amazon Positive Sentiment: Zoox is moving toward commercialization. Amazon’s self-driving unit received approval for driverless vehicles and plans to begin paid robotaxi rides in Las Vegas on August 10. The launch provides a potential long-term growth option beyond retail, cloud, and advertising. Amazon’s Zoox to Start Paid Robotaxi Rides Neutral Sentiment: Amazon’s Anthropic investment boosted reported results. Second-quarter net income included approximately $53.4 billion in largely non-operating gains tied to Anthropic investments. The gain validates the strategic value of Amazon’s AI holdings, but it is not recurring operating profit and may make underlying earnings comparisons less clear. Amazon’s Anthropic-Related Gain Negative Sentiment: Jeff Bezos’ planned sale is weighing on sentiment. The founder disclosed plans to sell 15 million shares worth roughly $4.1 billion under a pre-arranged trading plan. Amazon executive Douglas Herrington also sold 1,000 shares, adding to supply concerns after the stock reached record levels. Jeff Bezos Amazon Share Sale Negative Sentiment: Legal and spending risks remain. An appeals court allowed Perplexity’s AI shopping agents to access Amazon’s platform, while New Jersey sued Amazon over alleged anticompetitive treatment of delivery contractors. Separately, the company’s large AI data-center commitments and capital-spending plans raise concerns about returns and free cash flow. Amazon.com Price Performance NASDAQ AMZN opened at $272.65 on Thursday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $246.31 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $236.97. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 52 week low of $196.00 and a 52 week high of $287.20. The stock has a market cap of $2.94 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.85 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a current ratio of 1.03, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.82 by $3.93. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 18.00% and a net margin of 17.44%.The business had revenue of $200.61 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $197.03 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.68 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.05 EPS for the current year.

Amazon.com Profile (Free Report)

Amazon.com, Inc is a diversified technology and retail company best known for its e-commerce marketplace and broad portfolio of consumer and enterprise services. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company launched as an online bookseller and expanded into a global retail platform that sells products directly to consumers and provides a marketplace for third-party sellers. Over time Amazon has grown beyond retail into areas including cloud computing, digital media, devices and logistics.

Key businesses and offerings include Amazon’s online marketplace and fulfillment services, the Amazon Prime membership program (which bundles expedited shipping with streaming and other benefits), Amazon Web Services (AWS) which supplies on-demand cloud computing and storage to businesses and public-sector customers, and a range of content and advertising services such as Prime Video and Amazon Advertising.

Recommended Stories Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com SpaceX: Love the Company, But the Stock Is a Harder Call Ulta’s Growth Is Real, But So Are the Risks BWX Technologies Is Turning the AI Power Problem Into a Nuclear Growth Story Meta’s Earnings Drop Shows Wall Street Wants More Than Ad Growth Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AMZN? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN – Free Report).

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Item 1 of 2 A woman injects herself with Zepbound, a GLP-1 weight-loss drug, at her home in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S., July 30, 2026. REUTERS/Karen Pulfer Focht

[1/2]A woman injects herself with Zepbound, a GLP-1 weight-loss drug, at her home in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S., July 30, 2026. REUTERS/Karen Pulfer Focht Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

CompaniesAug 6 (Reuters) - Amazon's (AMZN.O), opens new tab pharmacy unit said on Thursday it would offer weight-loss drugs to eligible Medicare beneficiaries ​for $50 a month through a new federal program created to ‌expand access to the highly sought-after treatments.

The company said it would automate eligibility checks, prior authorization and billing, while offering home delivery and in-store pickup, to ​help patients access the drugs faster and reduce the administrative ​burden.

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The U.S. government's Medicare bridge program, launched last month, allows eligible ⁠beneficiaries to obtain drugs including Novo Nordisk's (NOVOb.CO), opens new tab Wegovy in injection ​or pill form, as well as Eli Lilly's (LLY.N), opens new tab four-dose Zepbound KwikPen injection ​and the Foundayo pill, through the end of 2027. The program does not cover single-dose Zepbound vials or pens.

Amazon Pharmacy said it would initiate the enrolment process ​on a customer's behalf once the patient adds insurance and Medicare ​details to their account and a clinician submits an electronic prescription.

Most Amazon Pharmacy ‌Bridge ⁠Program patients received a prior authorization decision in less than 24 hours, compared with the 72-hour timeframe allowed under the Medicare Bridge Program, Tanvi Patel, vice president and general manager of Amazon Pharmacy, told Reuters.

Many ​of the claims ​submitted have already ⁠resulted in completed orders, the company added.

Amazon Pharmacy launched electronic kiosks in its One Medical primary care locations ​last year to improve access and cut shipping costs.

One ​Medical, ⁠a national primary care provider Amazon acquired in 2023, allows patients to access primary and urgent care for an annual subscription fee of $199.

Same-day delivery ⁠is ​available in more than 3,100 U.S. cities ​and towns and is expected to expand to nearly 4,500 locations by the end of ​2026, Amazon said.

Reporting by Sahil Pandey in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda

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Amazon (AMZN -1.72%) holds the record for the biggest spender in 2026's AI arms race. It's planning to spend $220 billion in capital expenditures this year, up from its initial $200 billion projection. And on its Q2 earnings call, Amazon cited one component as the driver of increasing its projection by $20 billion: memory.

There are a handful of memory chip manufacturers, but chief among them is Micron (MU +0.06%). Micron is a major player in this sector, and this forecast increase should give Micron investors confidence that the memory chip boom isn't just a flash in the pan; it could last for years.

Image source: Getty Images.

Multiple projections point toward lasting data center demand During Amazon's conference call, it also pointed out that even with its $220 billion in capital expenditures (capex), it wouldn't be able to obtain enough computing capacity to meet demand. This is bullish news for several companies in the AI industry, including Amazon itself. Amazon noted that its clients are still in the early stages of deploying AI on a wide scale, and that the amount of inference workloads will skyrocket in the near future. That means more computing capacity, which translates into huge demand for memory chips -- a commodity whose availability is already slim.

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Memory prices have skyrocketed this year due to insufficient supply amid surging demand. This translates into rising prices, benefiting companies like Micron, but costing consumers and AI hyperscalers a ton of money. However, the demand is clearly still there despite price hikes, so that points to potentially higher memory prices a year from now.

That is music to Micron investors' ears, as it could have a lot of room to run.

Micron's stock is cheap if the memory chip crunch drags into 2028 The memory chip producers aren't satisfied with their current capacity, so many are building new facilities to increase supply. However, there's no saying that what they bring online will be enough, and prices could remain elevated even after some of them start production. That's why Micron's management team told investors it expects market tightness to persist beyond 2027, indicating several quarters of strong growth ahead for Micron.

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Wall Street analysts back up this projection, as they estimate that Micron's revenue will increase at an 85% pace during fiscal year 2027, ending August 2027. Furthermore, its earnings per share are projected to rise from $73.43 in fiscal year 2026 to $155.56 in fiscal year 2027. Those are explosive growth rates, and will be easy to achieve if AI hyperscalers spend more in 2027 and memory chip prices stay high or rise.

However, the market isn't pricing this possibility into Micron's stock. Right now, it trades for 5.3 times fiscal year 2027 earnings.

MU PE Ratio (Forward 1y) data by YCharts

That's not an expensive price tag for Micron's stock, and if memory chip demand stays elevated for the foreseeable future, it could lead to a far higher stock price.

The biggest issue holding Micron's stock back is that no one knows how long the current wave of memory chip pricing strength will last. The memory chip market goes through boom-and-bust cycles regularly, with nobody able to predict the end. However, there is emerging evidence that this could be the longest-lasting memory chip boom yet. During its conference call, Amazon told investors it won't be able to bring enough computing capacity to meet demand in 2026, and likely sees that pattern extending into 2027 as well. Furthermore, demand for 2028 is already starting to pop up due to the shortages during the next year and a half. All of that points to the memory chip cycle lasting for a lot longer than normal, making Micron a solid investment right now while it's on sale.

Amazon’s AI spending is settling a debate between the bulls and the bears. Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Matt Garman spent Monday on Bloomberg Technology arguing that AWS’s growth is only getting started. He then went to X and quantified it in a way that undercuts every bear case that AI demand is topping out. “Much of our capacity is already spoken for through 2027 and into 2028, and demand still significantly outstrips supply,” Garman wrote. “We’re going to keep building to keep up with what customers are asking for.”

That single promise reframes the debate over hyperscaler capex. Garman is telling the market that AWS has already booked its next two years of infrastructure, which is why the company is comfortable spending at a historic pace.

The Numbers Behind the Quote Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) reported Q2 2026 AWS revenue of $42.232 billion, up 37% year-over-year, which management flagged as the fastest growth in 18 quarters. AWS Q2 operating margin came in at 39.4%, and capital expenditures reached $54.208 billion in the quarter, a 68.44% year-over-year jump.

CEO Andy Jassy sized the AI stack directly, stating: “AWS is booming, growing 36.7% year-over-year in Q2, our fastest growth in 18 quarters, and our AI and Chips businesses each eclipsed run rates of more than $25 billion.” Both are growing at triple-digit rates. AWS chief Garman also flagged a large shift from training to inference workloads, the actual usage of models, which tends to produce sticky, recurring compute demand rather than one-off training bursts.

UBS estimates AWS growth will accelerate to 48% next year as Trainium scales with some help from OpenAI. Prediction markets are echoing the bullish buildout thesis: Polymarket traders assign a 96.3% probability that Amazon’s 2026 capex clears $190 billion. Shares have rallied 20.1% in the past five trading sessions.

The Suppliers Locked Into the Buildout If AWS capacity through 2028 is committed, the merchant silicon and interconnect vendors feeding those data centers have equally visible order books.

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Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) posted Q1 FY2027 revenue of $2.418 billion, up 28% year over year, with data center contributing $1.833 billion, or 76% of the total pie. CEO Matt Murphy told investors, “We are seeing exceptional AI-related bookings, and as a result, we are significantly raising Marvell’s revenue outlook for both fiscal 2027 and fiscal 2028.” Marvell shares climbed 14.33% on August 4 as the AWS quote circulated.

Astera Labs (NASDAQ:ALAB), which sells connectivity silicon for scale-up AI racks, reported Q1 revenue of $308.4 million, up 93.4% year-over-year, and guided Q2 to a range of $355 million to $365 million. The stock is up 92.99% year-to-date.

Credo Technology (NASDAQ:CRDO) closed fiscal 2026 with full-year revenue of $1.34 billion, up 205.7%, and guided Q1 FY27 to a range of $465 million to $475 million. CEO Bill Brennan credited a vertically integrated approach that he said enables customers to accelerate cluster time-to-stability, maximize GPU utilization, and reduce data center power costs.

What to watch: whether Q3 AWS bookings and hyperscaler capex commentary from Marvell, Astera, and Credo confirm Garman’s 2028 visibility. If they do, Amazon’s AI spending starts to look less like a leap of faith and more like a supply chain already being claimed years in advance.

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Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Amazon (AMZN -2.32%) has world-class cloud computing and online retail businesses, but its investment in Anthropic is fast becoming one of its greatest assets. Amazon has invested $13 billion in the artificial intelligence start-up, but in its most recent regulatory filing, Amazon now values that investment at a whopping $190.4 billion.

That’s a 14.6x gain in Amazon’s stake, and it helped Amazon record $62.64 billion in net income for the second quarter, as Amazon was able to claim paper profits of $53.39 billion in non-operating income on its balance sheet.

But the bigger story isn’t about Amazon’s accounting ledger. It's what the revaluation of Amazon’s investment says about Anthropic’s fast-growing value, and what that could mean for Amazon stock down the road.

Image source: Amazon.

Amazon’s current stake in AnthropicFirst, let’s look at the raw numbers. Amazon made an $8 billion investment in Anthropic in 2024, and followed that up this year with another $5 billion investment. Amazon reportedly has a 21% stake in the maker of Claude.

At the end of the first quarter, Amazon disclosed that its Anthropic stake had grown to $74.2 billion -- $42.2 billion in convertible notes and $32 billion in nonvoting preferred stock. Based on Amazon’s reported 21% ownership, that implies Anthropic’s value at the time was about $353 billion.

However, Anthropic is growing fast. In late May, Anthropic raised $65 billion in a fundraising round, valuing the company at $965 billion. It has also filed a confidential draft S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission -- the first step to filing an IPO. So, when Anthropic does go public, it could raise its value even higher.

Now let’s turn back to Amazon. Its second-quarter filing shows that Amazon’s stake in Anthropic grew dramatically: convertible notes are now valued at $97.9 billion, and nonvoting preferred stock is valued at $92.5 billion, giving Amazon a total stake of $190.4 billion.

Clearly, Anthropic is becoming much more valuable, particularly as strong demand for its Claude AI is driving rapid revenue growth. Its list of AI enterprise customers includes Cognizant Technology Solutions, which rolled out the Claude model to its 350,000 employees, as well as IBM and Deloitte.

Anthropic is growing so quickly that it now has a $1.2 trillion valuation on secondary markets. If that’s the case, then Amazon’s stake could be worth up to $252 billion.

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Why the Anthropic value mattersAfter a 20% jump following its earnings report, Amazon currently has a market capitalization of about $3 trillion. And make no mistake -- its businesses are doing exceptionally well. Revenue in the second quarter topped $200.6 billion, with its North America segment growing 16% to $116.2 billion and its International segment jumping 15% to $42.2 billion.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) revenue soared by 37%, generating operating income of $16.6 billion, and Amazon increased its projected capex for the year from $200 billion to $220 billion as it continues to build out its industry-leading cloud computing division.

Anthropic will also be a key customer for Amazon, which obtained more than $100 billion in commitments from the AI start-up over the next decade. Amazon will provide up to 5 gigawatts of capacity for Anthropic to train and run Claude, and will provide an updated version of its Trainium AI chips and CPUs.

Regardless of when -- or if -- Anthropic finally goes public, Amazon will continue to benefit. The value of its equity stake should appreciate, and Anthropic will be a valued Amazon customer.

That’s tremendous value for Amazon’s $13 billion investment -- and in all likelihood, it will just continue to grow.

Item 1 of 2 A truck departs Amazon's fulfillment center during Cyber Monday in Robbinsville, New Jersey, U.S., December 1, 2025. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

[1/2]A truck departs Amazon's fulfillment center during Cyber Monday in Robbinsville, New Jersey, U.S., December 1, 2025. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

CompaniesAug 4 (Reuters) - New Jersey ‌sued Amazon.com on Tuesday, accusing the online retailer of abusing its market power over independent delivery drivers.

The ​state accused Amazon of using its dominance to ​impose low pay and poor conditions on ⁠drivers who deliver for the company via its ​Delivery Service Partner program. The lawsuit was filed in federal court ​in Newark, New Jersey.

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The program is run by Amazon's logistics arm and allows people to set up businesses ​to deliver packages locally. Those small businesses ​deliver 20 million packages a day for Amazon globally, according ‌to ⁠the company.

The state alleges that Amazon punishes drivers who try to unionize and tries to keep independent businesses in the program from poaching ​each other's drivers ​in ⁠violation of antitrust law.

A spokesperson for Amazon did not immediately respond to ​a request for comment.

Amazon is fighting ​other antitrust ⁠lawsuits brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the state of California accusing the company ⁠of ​illegally monopolizing online retail ​markets. The company has denied those allegations.

Reporting by Jody Godoy in ​New York Editing by Nick Zieminski and Deepa Babington

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

Jody Godoy reports on tech policy and antitrust enforcement, including how regulators are responding to the rise of AI. Reach her at [email protected]

Amazon stock NASDAQ:AMZN slipped overnight after the company entered the $3 trillion club, turning attention towards founder Jeff Bezos and a share-sale plan now worth billions.

The stock closed 4.6% higher at a record $284.02 on Monday, pushing Amazon’s market value above $3 trillion.

The rally followed a second-quarter report in which Amazon Web Services revenue grew 37%, its fastest pace in 18 quarters.

As per Amazon’s annual filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Jeff Bezos can sell up to 15 million Amazon shares.

At Monday’s closing price, the full 15-million-share allocation would be worth about $4.3 billion. That is a major personal transaction, but it represents only around 0.14% of Amazon’s market value.

The optics are nevertheless striking. Amazon’s founder is positioned to convert shares into cash after the company reached a record valuation and Wall Street grew more confident that its artificial-intelligence investments are producing measurable demand.

The sale should not be read as a sudden bearish call. Amazon’s annual filing shows Bezos adopted the Rule 10b5-1 plan on November 14, 2025. It permits sales through February 26, 2027, subject to conditions.

That structure allows transactions to occur over an extended period and reduces the significance of any single sale date.

It also means Bezos did not decide to unload 15 million shares after Amazon crossed $3 trillion.

The plan looks well timed, but disciplined diversification at a strong valuation is different from declaring that Amazon has peaked.

Amazon reached the milestone because investors received clearer evidence that cloud and AI expenditure is translating into revenue.

AWS sales climbed 37% to $42.2 billion, accelerating from 28% growth in the first quarter and beating expectations for roughly 31% expansion. Operating income rose to $16.6 billion from $10.2 billion a year earlier.

Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik said AWS had “finally” reached its long-awaited growth inflection.

Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney described the quarter as a decisive revenue beat with Amazon moving through its capital-expenditure digestion phase faster and more profitably than feared.

Morningstar analyst Dan Romanoff told Barron’s that 37% growth was remarkable given AWS’s scale.

He said demand across conventional cloud and AI workloads supported management’s investment plans.

Those comments suggest Bezos would be selling into improving fundamentals, rather than a rally driven solely by market enthusiasm.

Amazon increased expected 2026 capital expenditure to $220 billion from $200 billion as it builds data centres, purchases chips and expands AI infrastructure.

Trailing 12-month free cash flow meanwhile fell to a $7.6 billion outflow, compared with positive cash generation a year earlier.

Zacks Investment Research strategist Ethan Feller told MarketWatch that the negative position was intentional but still “warrants monitoring” while spending remains elevated.

Amazon’s reported $62.6 billion quarterly net income also included $53.4 billion of pre-tax non-operating income, primarily linked to the rising value of its Anthropic investment, rather than ordinary business operations.

That makes cash generation the real test of the $3 trillion valuation.

AWS must sustain rapid growth, protect margins and ultimately produce enough cash to fund infrastructure while rewarding shareholders.

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

CompaniesAug 3 (Reuters) - Amazon's market value topped $3 trillion for the first time on Monday, helped by a sharp rally ​following strong earnings and signs that the AI boom ‌is driving fresh demand for its cloud-computing services, the company's main profit engine.

Its shares (AMZN.O), opens new tab were last up 5.5% at $286.20, hitting a record high and ​taking their yearly gains to over 23%.

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The Seattle-based e-commerce ​and cloud computing giant's stock surged 15% on Friday ⁠after it delivered its strongest cloud growth in more than four ​years and raised its annual capital spending forecast.

Amazon and Microsoft are the ​only two of the "Magnificent Seven" companies, out of the six that have reported so far, whose AI spending has paid off in investors' eyes. Tesla, Alphabet ​and Meta were punished as their massive spending plans hit free ​cash flow last quarter.

Along with other tech giants on Wall Street, Amazon has ‌been ⁠pouring billions to build out its AI infrastructure. It disclosed a new investment in Anthropic in April, which follows Amazon's announcement earlier this year that it would invest up to $50 billion in ​OpenAI.

It took just ​over two years ⁠for the company, founded by Jeff Bezos back in 1994, to add another trillion dollars to ​its market value after hitting a $2 trillion valuation ​for ⁠the first time in June 2024.

Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab are the other companies that have recorded a market value of $3 trillion ⁠in ​the past. Nvidia is currently the world's ​biggest company with a market capitalization close to $5 trillion.

Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and ​Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Symnath and Shinjini Ganguli

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

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SummaryAmazon (AMZN) earns a Buy rating, with fair value estimated at $320, reflecting AWS-driven operating income growth and improving retail margins. AWS revenue surged 37% to $42.2B, operating margin expanded to 39.4%, and backlog reached $496B, supporting multi-year growth visibility. Capital intensity remains a risk; free cash flow is negative and debt has doubled, but management projects strong operating income growth through 2026. Failure points include AWS growth below 25%, margin compression, or retail/advertising underperformance, which could materially weaken the investment thesis. Yuriy T/iStock Editorial via Getty Images

The Quarter That Changed The Capital-Spending Debate Amazon's (AMZN) most powerful bull thesis isn't just about AI ultimately validating the massive amount being spent now. Rather, Amazon is generating sufficient incremental

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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Amazon (AMZN +15.32%) shares surged after a strong second-quarter earnings report. What likely really grabbed investors' attention was CEO Andy Jassy predicting that its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), could become a $1 trillion revenue business. Jassy is not known for his bold predictions, unlike Elon Musk, so this likely carried more weight with investors.

Cloud growth keeps accelerating The highlight of Amazon's quarter was once again AWS, with revenue surging 37% year over year to $42.2 billion. That was an acceleration from the 28% growth it saw in the first quarter and the 24% growth it saw in the fourth quarter. It was AWS' fastest revenue growth in nearly four and a half years (18 quarters).

Jassy said that both its artificial intelligence (AI) and chip businesses now had more than $25 billion revenue run rates, with its AI business growing by triple digits. Its backlog also grew by triple digits to $496 billion.

Operating income in the segment, meanwhile, jumped 63% to $16.6 billion. Its operating margin of 39% has now risen for four straight quarters, helped by use of its custom chips and investments in software and optimization. While Jassy said margins could fluctuate, he also said the steady rise hasn't been random.

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Amazon's e-commerce operation, meanwhile, continues to perform well. Its North America sales jumped by 16% year over year to $116.2 billion, while international sales rose 15% to $42.2 billion. Advertising continues to be a big driver, with ad revenue climbing 26% to $19.8 billion, fueled by its sponsored ad business.

The company once again saw nice operating leverage in its North American e-commerce operations, with its operating income for its North American segment jumping 21% to $9.1 billion. Its international segment saw operating income rise 15% to $1.7 billion.

Overall, Amazon's revenue jumped by 20% year over year to $200.61 billion, which easily topped the $196.47 billion analyst consensus, as compiled by LSEG. Earnings per share (EPS) more than tripled to $2.78, but they included a large gain from Amazon's investment in Anthropic, so they were not comparable to analyst estimates for EPS of $1.82.

Looking ahead, Amazon projected that its third-quarter revenue would climb to between $197 billion and $202 billion (representing growth of between 9% and 12%), which was below the $204.1 billion consensus. Adjusted for the shift in Prime Day, growth would be between 13% and 16%. Currency is expected to be an 80-basis-point drag.

Jassy also said Amazon would increase its capex budget this year, taking it from $200 billion to $220 billion, largely due to higher memory costs. He said AWS demand continues to outstrip capacity and that this will continue in 2027, while adding that "the demand we already have for 2028 is striking." Jassy topped it off by saying he sees AWS becoming a $1 trillion business in time, with strong ROIC (return on invested capital) and free cash flow.

He also went over some basic economics of the cloud business, noting that AWS should break even on its server and networking investments in two to three years, while its servers have useful lives of five to six years and it signs five-year leases. The company's data centers, meanwhile, have over 30-year useful lives, and the economics become stronger over time as Amazon doesn't have to make these upfront data center investments.

Image source: Getty Images.

Jassy has long been derided given the underperformance of Amazon's stock, despite the strong job he's done positioning both the company's e-commerce and cloud computing businesses. However, I think the vision he laid out for AWS becoming a $1 trillion revenue business and simply explaining AWS' economics really struck a chord with investors.

Even after the jump in its stock price, Amazon still trades at an attractive valuation, with a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 31 times 2026 analyst estimates and 27 times 2027 estimates. That's still a historically low valuation for the stock and well below its retail peers Walmart and Costco. With its e-commerce business humming along and AWS gaining strong momentum, the stock still looks like a long-term buy at these levels.

Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 1st, 2026

Aviance Capital Partners LLC raised its position in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 2.3% in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 137,027 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,081 shares during the quarter. Amazon.com makes up about 3.3% of Aviance Capital Partners LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 5th biggest holding. Aviance Capital Partners LLC’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $28,539,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AMZN. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Amazon.com by 7.1% in the 1st quarter. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC now owns 45,912 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $9,562,000 after purchasing an additional 3,039 shares during the last quarter. Pavion Blue Capital LLC lifted its position in shares of Amazon.com by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. Pavion Blue Capital LLC now owns 25,897 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $5,394,000 after purchasing an additional 217 shares during the last quarter. GatePass Capital LLC grew its stake in shares of Amazon.com by 17.7% during the first quarter. GatePass Capital LLC now owns 7,625 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $1,588,000 after purchasing an additional 1,145 shares in the last quarter. German American Bancorp Inc. increased its holdings in Amazon.com by 1.1% in the first quarter. German American Bancorp Inc. now owns 151,064 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $31,462,000 after buying an additional 1,587 shares during the last quarter. Finally, California Public Employees Retirement System raised its stake in Amazon.com by 8.7% in the first quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 21,785,734 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $4,537,315,000 after buying an additional 1,735,857 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.20% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of analysts have issued reports on AMZN shares. Telsey Advisory Group set a $335.00 price target on Amazon.com and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday. New Street Research increased their price objective on Amazon.com from $280.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, May 4th. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $335.00 target price (up from $330.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Friday. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their price target on Amazon.com from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Bank of America increased their price target on shares of Amazon.com from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Fifty-six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $322.12.

Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on AMZN

Key Amazon.com News Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:

Positive Sentiment: Amazon reported record quarterly sales of $200.6 billion, up nearly 20% year over year, while earnings per share of $5.75 significantly exceeded the $1.82 consensus estimate. Operating income rose 43% to $27.5 billion. Amazon second-quarter results Positive Sentiment: AWS revenue accelerated 37% to $42.2 billion—its fastest growth in 18 quarters—beating expectations as enterprise AI demand strengthened. The result helped ease concerns that Amazon’s massive AI infrastructure investments would not produce adequate returns. Amazon AWS growth Positive Sentiment: Advertising revenue climbed 26% to approximately $19.8 billion, while stronger e-commerce activity and robotics-supported fulfillment added to the broad-based quarterly beat. Positive Sentiment: Multiple firms raised their price targets following the results, including JPMorgan to $365, Benchmark to $400, Truist to $350, and RBC to $330. Analysts cited accelerating AWS growth, AI monetization and margin potential. Amazon analyst price targets Positive Sentiment: Amazon completed the remaining $35 billion of its planned OpenAI investment, bringing its total commitment to $50 billion. The partnership could support future AWS demand, although it also increases capital commitments. Amazon OpenAI investment Neutral Sentiment: Amazon raised its 2026 capital-spending outlook to $220 billion to expand AI and cloud capacity. Management sees demand extending into 2028, but the scale of spending will keep free cash flow and funding requirements under scrutiny. Neutral Sentiment: The company expects third-quarter revenue of $197 billion to $202 billion, below the roughly $204.6 billion analyst consensus, creating a potential near-term headwind despite the strong quarter. Negative Sentiment: Amazon faces consumer lawsuits alleging misleading seafood sustainability claims and the sale of protein powder allegedly contaminated with heavy metals. The cases could create legal, reputational and compliance costs, though their financial impact is currently unclear. Amazon consumer lawsuit Amazon.com Trading Up 15.3% Shares of AMZN opened at $271.58 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 1.18 and a quick ratio of 1.01. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 1-year low of $196.00 and a 1-year high of $278.56. The stock has a market cap of $2.92 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.75 and a beta of 1.46. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $245.70 and a 200-day simple moving average of $236.22.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $3.93. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 19.59% and a net margin of 17.44%.The firm had revenue of $200.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $197.03 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.68 EPS. Amazon.com’s revenue was up 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 7.84 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Amazon.com In other news, CEO Douglas J. Herrington sold 1,000 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $239,770.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 484,527 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $116,175,038.79. The trade was a 0.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Matthew S. Garman sold 15,467 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $263.40, for a total value of $4,074,007.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 14,159 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,729,480.60. The trade was a 52.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 135,719 shares of company stock valued at $36,438,002. 8.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Amazon.com Profile (Free Report)

Amazon.com, Inc is a diversified technology and retail company best known for its e-commerce marketplace and broad portfolio of consumer and enterprise services. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company launched as an online bookseller and expanded into a global retail platform that sells products directly to consumers and provides a marketplace for third-party sellers. Over time Amazon has grown beyond retail into areas including cloud computing, digital media, devices and logistics.

Key businesses and offerings include Amazon’s online marketplace and fulfillment services, the Amazon Prime membership program (which bundles expedited shipping with streaming and other benefits), Amazon Web Services (AWS) which supplies on-demand cloud computing and storage to businesses and public-sector customers, and a range of content and advertising services such as Prime Video and Amazon Advertising.

Featured Stories Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com Chevron’s Strong Quarter Shows Why It Still Leads the Energy Sector Amazon’s Earnings Beat Shows Why AWS Is Back at the Center of the Bull Case Apple’s Record Quarter Could Not Outrun Its Guidance Problem McKesson’s Compounding Keeps Adding Up Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AMZN? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN – Free Report).

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