Amazon (AMZN -0.95%) has been a poor stock to own recently. While it rose following its Q2 earnings release, the stock has slowly sold off since then and is now up about 8% for the year, trailing the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.52%). However, I think this could all turn around once again after Oct. 29, when Amazon reports Q3 earnings.
The reason is fairly clear, and investors have already seen it cause Amazon's price tag to spike once already this year: cloud computing growth.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Amazon is the industry leader in cloud computing
Amazon may not be the first name you think of when discussing huge tech companies, but it should be high on the list. While most consumers are familiar with Amazon's commerce site and delivery platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS) really steers the business. In fact, AWS -- which supplies cloud computing -- accounted for 60% of Amazon's operating income in Q2, despite making up only 21% of revenue.
How? AWS's operating margins are far superior to those of its commerce business, which is a notoriously razor-thin-margin industry.
While commerce still affects Amazon's investment picture, investors must realize that Amazon doesn't care much about it right now. Amazon is spending about $220 billion this year to expand its computing infrastructure and fuel AWS growth. It seems content with its current dominance in commerce and sees a major opportunity in cloud computing right now, thanks to booming demand for running AI workloads.
AMZN Amazon$248.00-$2.38 (-0.95%)
NASDAQ · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/23/26
These investments have so far paid off, as AWS's growth rate has significantly climbed over the past few quarters. Rewinding to Q4 2025, AWS's growth was 24% year over year. Then it accelerated to 28% in Q1 2026. Amazon surprised investors by reporting impressive 37% growth in Q2, which caused shares to skyrocket earlier this year before eventually selling off.
If Amazon continues to meaningfully accelerate its AWS growth rate, say to the mid-40% range, it could ignite another run-up in stock price, as it would have a positive effect on Amazon's operating margins. This, in turn, will cause earnings per share to rise faster, which the market will love.
If it can do that, Amazon's stock should be primed to rise, because it's actually pretty reasonably valued right now, at least compared to historical levels.
Amazon's stock isn't that expensive
Valuing Amazon's stock is a bit tricky. While the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is the gold standard for valuing stocks like Amazon, it's currently not applicable.
Amazon has been a major investor in private company Anthropic, whose valuation has risen substantially over the past year. Accounting rules require Amazon to report these investment gains as profits, even if it hasn't sold them yet. So, Amazon has a lot of profits on paper, but not as many in real life.
To adjust for this, I value Amazon on its operating income, which is one line item above net income. This metric doesn't account for gains on investment, taxes, depreciation, or other factors that could skew the results. It's just how the business itself is doing. From this standpoint, Amazon's price-to-operating-income ratio has declined substantially over the past few years.
AMZN Operating PE Ratio data by YCharts
While it has been slightly cheaper a handful of times this year, it is still pretty reasonably valued. I think now is the perfect time to load up on shares, as its valuation could increase following strong Q3 results likely be highlighted by impressive AWS growth.
I'm bullish on Amazon's future, and AWS will be the division that takes it to the next level as an investment.
Amazon po šesti letech urovnal spor s bývalými manažery Carlem Nelsonem a Caseym Kirschnerem, kteří přiznali, že přijali osobní platby související se zakázkami na datová centra.
Two former Amazon real estate managers acknowledged receiving personal payments tied to data center deals they handled for the company, under a settlement that resolves the company’s claims against them in a six-year lawsuit.
Carl Nelson and Casey Kirschner “regret their actions, apologize for failing to meet Amazon’s high ethical standards, and are glad this matter has been resolved,” according to a joint statement that the parties agreed to as part of the settlement.
The payments “violated Amazon’s Code of Conduct & Ethics, broke the trust Amazon places in its employees, and put Amazon’s reputation at risk in the communities it serves,” says the statement, which Amazon provided Friday evening in response to GeekWire’s inquiry.
The statement doesn’t call the payments kickbacks or say they were illegal. Nelson was investigated by the FBI but never charged, and a federal judge ruled in 2023 that Amazon’s Code of Conduct wasn’t a legally enforceable contract. The other terms of the settlement are confidential, including whether any money changed hands.
Before the settlement, Nelson had maintained that he abided by the terms of his Amazon employment agreement, which his attorneys said gave him broad leeway to do outside business.
Rodney Atherton, a Colorado attorney who set up business entities for the two men, also settled and “regrets the role he played in the conduct at issue in this case,” according to the statement.
The settlement closes a long legal ordeal for Nelson’s family. His wife, Amy Nelson, the former Seattle entrepreneur who founded The Riveter, a network of co-working spaces for women, has been his most outspoken advocate, defending him for years on social media and in interviews and criticizing Amazon and the Justice Department for pursuing him.
“All disputes with my husband’s former employer have been resolved,” she said in a short video posted Friday on social media.
The case upended the family’s life. The FBI seized $892,135 from the Nelsons’ bank accounts in 2020, including hundreds of thousands of dollars Amy Nelson earned as CEO of The Riveter.
The government returned most of it in a 2022 settlement. By then, the Nelsons had sold their West Seattle home and emptied their retirement accounts to pay lawyers, and they had moved with their four daughters to Hawaii and then Ohio, where Amy’s parents live. The family had spent more than $3 million on legal fees, she told KIRO 7 in 2023.
“Many of the things that we lost over the past four years, we can never get back. We can never get our home back. We can never get our jobs back. We can never get our reputation back,” she told The Seattle Times in 2024, after federal prosecutors moved to drop the related criminal cases.
Amazon told the judge on Oct. 20 that it had reached the settlement, less than two weeks before the case was set to go to trial in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., according to court filings.
The case continues against the remaining defendants, Brian Watson and his Denver-based real estate firm, Northstar Commercial Partners, which Amazon hired for nine data center development projects in Northern Virginia between 2018 and 2020. Amazon alleges that Northstar won that business by paying kickbacks to Nelson and Kirschner, which Watson denies.
Watson and Northstar are headed to trial Nov. 2. In a filing Friday, they asked the judge to make Amazon hand over the settlement agreement so they can see its terms.
The settlement follows years of rulings that went both ways. In April 2023, a federal judge dismissed most of Amazon’s claims, including its breach of contract claims against Nelson and Kirschner. In September 2025, a federal appeals court revived several of the claims, including racketeering and fraud, and sent the case back for trial.
In January 2024, federal prosecutors moved to vacate the guilty pleas of two other men in the case, Kirschner’s brother, Christian Kirschner, and former Northstar account manager Kyle Ramstetter, calling prosecution “not in the best interests of justice.”
Prosecutors added that they had declined to prosecute the other alleged co-conspirators, including Nelson.
Cloudová kapacita AWS je z velké části vyprodaná až do roku 2027 a významná část kapacity je již vyprodaná i na rok 2028, uvedl šéf Amazonu Andy Jassy. Poptávku táhne infrastruktura pro AI.
Amazon (AMZN.O) CEO Andy Jassy said on Friday that Amazon Web Services' cloud computing capacity is largely sold out through 2027, with significant commitments extending into 2028, on growing demand for AI infrastructure.
In a video podcast with Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz and general partner Erik Torenberg, Jassy said Amazon is struggling to keep pace with the insatiable demand from AI labs and enterprises.
Earlier this year, Amazon had said it would spend about $220 billion in capital expenditure for 2026
Jassy said the company "could invest a lot more and it wouldn't be a bad use of capital," considering cloud-computing capacity for 2026 is already sold out
"2027 is largely sold out. We always leave a certain amount for on demand and our inference service bedrock, or EC2, but largely sold out all the big chunks. A good chunk of 2028 is sold out," he said
EC2 is an AWS service that provides cloud servers for running applications, while Bedrock gives customers access to AI models to build generative AI applications
Amazon is scheduled to report third quarter results on October 29
Amazon AMZN stands out among consumer stocks as Bank of America (BofA) data show heavy withdrawals from consumer-focused funds, highlighting a divide between investor sentiment toward the broader sector and the quantitative appeal of individual companies.
Amazon received a quantitative score of 4.95 out of five in the supplied ranking, putting it at the top of the consumer-stock list. The scoring approach considers factors such as valuation, growth, profitability, earnings estimate revisions and share-price momentum relative to sector peers.
The broader fund-flow trend remains a concern. BofA's figures show consumer fund withdrawals accelerating, with the four-week moving average falling further into negative territory. That suggests investor caution may extend beyond short-term market fluctuations.
Amazon's diversified business spans online retail, cloud computing through Amazon Web Services, advertising and digital services. Those operations give the company several sources of growth, although a favorable quantitative score alone does not guarantee future share-price gains.
For investors, the key question is whether Amazon's business performance can continue to support its valuation while sentiment toward consumer-related investments weakens.
Amazon před zveřejněním výsledků čelí otázkám ohledně návratnosti investic do AI: tržby AWS ve 2. čtvrtletí vzrostly o 37 % a provozní zisk dosáhl 16,6 miliardy USD.
Amazon heads into Thursday's report after AWS operating income reached $16.6 billion, with AI investment returns in focus. -
Summary
AWS margins, capital spending and capacity constraints are key measures to watch.
Amazon, the commerce and cloud-computing giant AMZN, traded at $248.96, down 0.57%, at 10:00 a.m. ET ahead of Thursday's earnings report. The modest decline leaves the bigger question untouched: how much profit can Amazon squeeze from its AI infrastructure spending? Reuters' earnings preview frames the coming reports as a test of whether that investment can deliver durable returns.
The hurdle is already high. Amazon reported second-quarter AWS revenue growth of 37%, its fastest pace in 18 quarters, alongside $16.6 billion in cloud operating income. Companywide operating income climbed 43% to $27.5 billion. Management's third-quarter operating-income forecast of $22.5 billion to $26.5 billion puts the next report's profitability firmly in focus.
The GuruFocus snapshot shows a GF Score of 93/100, with growth its strongest category and financial strength comparatively weaker. That supports a strong operating profile, but it does not settle the spending question. Watch AWS margins, capital expenditures and capacity constraints together. Faster cloud growth carries more weight when the returns hold up after power, depreciation and chip costs.
Disclosures
I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.
Tržby AWS ve 2. čtvrtletí 2026 meziročně vzrostly o 36,7 % na 42,2 miliardy USD, což představuje nejrychlejší růst za 18 čtvrtletí, a to díky poptávce po AI.
Amazon survived a brutal 50% stock collapse, a CEO transition, and its first losing year in nearly a decade, then came roaring back with cloud growth nobody saw coming. Whether you bought in last year or ten years ago changes…
How an Online Store Became a Cloud and Ad Empire
A decade ago, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) was mostly an online store with a promising cloud side business. Over the decade that followed, AWS became the dominant profit engine, Prime grew alongside a huge logistics expansion, and advertising turned into a giant that brought in $19.8 billion in Q2 2026 alone, up 26%.
The pandemic sent e-commerce demand surging, and Andy Jassy succeeded Jeff Bezos as CEO in July 2021. Then the bill came due. Amazon overbuilt its fulfillment network, posted its first unprofitable year since 2014 in 2022, and the stock fell roughly 50%.
AI Pushed AWS Back Into High Gear
Cost discipline under Jassy brought margins back, and AI demand revived cloud growth. AWS revenue rose 36.7% to $42.2 billion in Q2 2026, its fastest growth in 18 quarters. The company’s AI and chips businesses each passed run rates of more than $25 billion.
Your $1,000 Grew to $5,966 Over the Decade
1-Year Return
Initial Investment: $1,000
Current Value: $1,148.80
Total Return: 14.88%
S&P 500 (same period): $1,140.90 (14.09%)
5-Year Return
Initial Investment: $1,000
Current Value: $1,499
Total Return: 49.9%
Annualized Return: 8.4%
S&P 500 (same period): $1,681.50 (68.15%)
10-Year Return
Initial Investment: $1,000
Current Value: $5,966
Total Return: 496.6%
Annualized Return: 19.6%
S&P 500 (same period): $3,545.60 (254.56%)
Timing explains almost everything here. The 10-year buyer got in before AWS and Prime fully took off and still finished well ahead of the index, even after sitting through the 2022 collapse. The 5-year buyer came in near the pandemic high, absorbed that same drop, and has trailed the S&P 500. Over the past year, Amazon roughly matched the market, and shares fell 4.57% on October 22 alone.
I Lean Bullish, With a Close Eye on Spending
I’d put $1,000 into Amazon today if AWS keeps turning its $496 billion backlog into high-margin revenue. Jassy says AWS could “very possibly be a trillion-dollar annual revenue business for us in time,” and advertising, grocery, and custom chips add growth that has nothing to do with cloud.
But I’d avoid it if spending exceeds the return. Amazon expects about $220 billion in 2026 cash capex, trailing free cash flow has turned negative at -$7.6 billion, and Anthropic gains boost GAAP earnings, including $53.4 billion pre-tax in Q2. At a P/E near 35, investors are paying up front for that expansion.
I lean bullish. The slow five-year stretch reflects a costly restructuring and a heavy investment cycle, and the AWS numbers suggest that cycle is starting to pay off. The next earnings report is the key test: I want AWS growth to hold up and capex to start bringing in revenue.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
B.A. Schrock Wealth Management ve třetím čtvrtletí nově nakoupila 27 588 akcií společnosti Amazon.com v hodnotě přibližně 6,848 milionu USD, což tvoří 2,3 % jejího portfolia.
B.A. Schrock Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN – Free Report) in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 27,588 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock, valued at approximately $6,848,000. Amazon.com accounts for 2.3% of B.A. Schrock Wealth Management Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest holding.
Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Red Crane Wealth Management LLC raised its position in shares of Amazon.com by 2.3% during the first quarter. Red Crane Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,663 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $346,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the period. Stegent Equity Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of Amazon.com by 2.7% during the third quarter. Stegent Equity Advisors Inc. now owns 1,462 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $364,000 after purchasing an additional 39 shares in the last quarter. Robinson Smith Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Amazon.com by 0.7% during the first quarter. Robinson Smith Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 5,509 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $1,147,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares in the last quarter. Sfam LLC lifted its position in shares of Amazon.com by 3.4% during the first quarter. Sfam LLC now owns 1,224 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $255,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Measured Risk Portfolios Inc. boosted its holdings in Amazon.com by 3.4% during the first quarter. Measured Risk Portfolios Inc. now owns 1,206 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $251,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the last quarter. 72.20% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.
Insider Activity In other news, VP Shelley Reynolds sold 2,343 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $259.01, for a total transaction of $606,860.43. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president owned 119,780 shares in the company, valued at approximately $31,024,217.80. This trade represents a 1.92% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing 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 Andrew Jassy sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.01, for a total transaction of $5,180,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,235,766 shares in the company, valued at $579,085,751.66. This represents a 0.89% 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 quarter, insiders have sold 71,589 shares of company stock worth $18,580,515. Company insiders own 8.90% of the company’s stock.
More Amazon.com News Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week: Positive Sentiment: Strong AWS and AI growth remain the central bull case. AWS is reportedly expanding at its fastest pace in 18 quarters, while Amazon’s custom Trainium chips are being made available to PyTorch developers. Analysts see cloud growth, advertising, operating leverage and AI infrastructure as potential drivers of substantial long-term upside. Amazon AI growth and upside analysis Positive Sentiment: Institutional and analyst support provided a counterpoint. Morgan Stanley named Amazon a top pick and raised its price target, while Citadel increased its Amazon position. Jefferies also said warehouse automation and Amazon’s logistics network could improve retail margins over time. Citadel Amazon stake and AI bubble article Positive Sentiment: Amazon continues to expand strategic growth opportunities. The company is involved in a proposed 960-megawatt nuclear project in Indiana, and data indicate it is gaining fresh-grocery market share from traditional supermarkets. Amazon nuclear energy project Neutral Sentiment: Third-quarter results are the immediate focus. Wall Street expects earnings growth, but investors are watching AWS growth, operating margins, free cash flow and management’s outlook for capital expenditures. The company’s recent spending plans reportedly approach $200 billion to $220 billion, making the earnings call particularly important. Amazon earnings preview Negative Sentiment: AI investment is raising return-on-capital concerns. Reports say some Nvidia-powered server racks purchased by Amazon are sitting idle because data centers lack sufficient electricity, while Amazon has also abandoned a planned Virginia data-center campus. Such developments could delay monetization of its massive infrastructure spending. Amazon Nvidia chips and data-center power report Negative Sentiment: Competitive, regulatory and labor risks remain overhangs. Debate over whether AI is in a bubble, Walmart’s more open approach to AI-agent commerce, a proposed bill targeting subsidies for large AI data centers, and renewed Teamsters pressure on delivery rules could increase uncertainty or costs. Amazon and Walmart AI-agent commerce article Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several research firms have commented on AMZN. Telsey Advisory Group set a $335.00 price objective on shares of Amazon.com and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Wolfe Research reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $315.00 target price on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. Wedbush increased their price target on Amazon.com from $293.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Amazon.com from $330.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reduced their price objective on Amazon.com from $320.00 to $310.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 12th. Fifty-seven 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, Amazon.com presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $322.53.
Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on AMZN
Amazon.com Stock Down 4.6% AMZN opened at $250.38 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.70 trillion, a P/E ratio of 35.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 1.45. Amazon.com, Inc. has a one year low of $196.00 and a one year high of $287.20. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $255.85 and a 200-day moving average price of $253.33. 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 quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $3.93. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 18.00% and a net margin of 17.44%. The company had revenue of $200.61 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $197.03 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.68 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 19.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Amazon.com Profile (Free Report)
Amazon.com, Inc is a global technology and e-commerce company founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. Originally launched as an online bookstore, the company has expanded into a broad digital marketplace offering consumer products across numerous categories, including electronics, household goods, apparel, groceries and other merchandise. Amazon also sells products under its own brands and provides logistics, fulfillment and delivery services that support its retail operations and third-party sellers.
The company’s principal businesses include online and physical retail, Amazon Web Services (AWS), digital advertising, subscription services and consumer technology.
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Tržby AWS ve druhém čtvrtletí fiskálního roku 2026 meziročně vzrostly o 37 % na 42,23 mld. USD, což představuje nejrychlejší tempo růstu za 18 čtvrtletí.
AWS just posted its fastest growth in 18 quarters, yet Amazon shares still sit well below their 52-week high. The path to $500 by 2030 exists, but it hinges on one part of the business clearing a very high bar.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction | AMZN Price Prediction) runs the world’s biggest cloud platform, and that cloud is speeding up again. AWS revenue reached $42.23B in Q2 FY26, up 37% YoY. That was its fastest growth in 18 quarters.
The stock is up 13.97% this year, which still trails what the business is doing. CEO Andy Jassy now says AWS could become “a trillion-dollar annual revenue business for us in time.” So can Amazon reach $500 per share by 2030?
Spending Fears Are Holding Amazon Back Right Now
Capex is the concern. Amazon raised its 2026 cash capex estimate to roughly $220 billion, up from about $200 billion, and cited higher memory costs. Free cash flow turned negative at -$7.6B TTM. Q3 guidance calls for only 9-12% sales growth, partly because Prime Day moved into Q2.
CNBC this week called it a “stumbling stock” that needs a path back to record highs. Shares sit at $262.59, below the 52-week high of $287.20. The past week (+1.74%) and month (+3.69%) show only a small rebound. With a beta of 1.456, the stock tends to amplify market moves.
Analysts Are Bullish, but Their Targets Stop Too Soon
Wall Street’s consensus target is $331.46. The ratings include 16 Strong Buys, 43 Buys, 2 Holds, along with 0 Sells. The model puts shares at $334.91, a 27.54% gain. The bear case sits at $287.36, while the bull case reaches $386.57. Confidence in the model is 0.7, which is fairly high.
The consensus looks too short-sighted. Sentiment is 97% bullish, yet earnings growth adds only 0.03 to the factor after a mega-cap drag. One-year targets also leave out the AWS backlog. Our five-year base case puts shares at $489.98 by October 2030.
Here’s What It Takes for Amazon to Reach $500
Getting from today’s price of $262.59 to $500 would take a gain of 90.4%.
Consensus FY2027 EPS is $10.5519. At $500, that is a forward P/E of 47x. The $334.91 estimate works out to 32x on the same EPS, so the bold target needs roughly 16x of additional multiple expansion.
That gap closes if earnings compound through 2030. The highest FY2027 estimate is $15.0435, and at that level $500 is only 33x. The model’s 1.102 adjustment factor reflects “strong earnings acceleration.”
AWS backlog stands at $496 billion and is growing triple digits. The AI and chips businesses each run above $25 billion annualized. Anthropic and OpenAI have signed multi-year, multi-gigawatt Trainium commitments. Jassy added: “We will still not have enough capacity to meet all the demand we have in 2026.”
A key risk is that capex keeps climbing faster than AWS revenue and delays the free cash flow recovery past 2030.
Where Amazon Trades Today vs Its Earnings Power
Amazon trades at about 25x FY2027 EPS, versus a trailing P/E of 36x. For a company whose largest profit engine is growing 37% with a 39.4% operating margin, that multiple looks reasonable.
Shares sit inside a 52-week range of $196 to $287.20. The 10-year return is 542.43%. Today’s valuation gives earnings growth room to carry most of the load toward $500.
$500 Is a Stretch, but Here’s Why It’s Possible
A $500 price needs a 90.4% gain. My conclusion is that this is ambitious yet credible. Three things have to go right. AWS has to keep growing above 30%.
AI margins have to follow the core cloud path, which Jassy says is happening “a little ahead” of schedule. And revenue growth has to outpace capex so free cash flow turns positive again. A recession that hits enterprise cloud budgets would knock this off course.
Such returns shouldn’t be expected every year, but we’ve outlined the plan for how Amazon could reach $500 in 2030.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Amazon zvýšil výhled kapitálových výdajů pro fiskální rok 2026 o 20 mld. USD na 220 mld. USD; očekává se zrychlení růstu AWS díky rostoucímu objemu nasmlouvaných zakázek.
SummaryAmazon.com, Inc. has underperformed other AI hyperscalers, which creates a buying opportunity for a catch-up rally, as I expect robust 3Q earnings.While Q3 retail revenue guidance seems soft, driven by the timing of Prime Day and an unfavorable currency impact, consumer spending remains strong enough to limit downside risk.I expect a Rule of 80 for AWS by year-end and 90 before FY2028, driven by a mounting backlog and accelerating capex growth that narrows the supply shortage gap.Even after raising its FY2026 capex outlook by $20 billion, the $220 billion figure implies a 26.5% capex to total-revenue ratio for AMZN, still well below peers.After stripping out the 2Q non-recurring $53.4 billion gain, AMZN's normalized FY2026 GAAP P/E would be 27x, which still looks attractive. JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images
Buying This AI Hyperscaler Laggard Despite a 5% intraday jump this week on Morgan Stanley's top pick upgrade, Amazon (AMZN) still underperforms the Nasdaq index, up only 13% YTD. Compared with other AI hyperscalers
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Amazon představil AWS Neuron 2.33, který usnadňuje provoz modelů PyTorch na čipech Trainium; TorchNeuron již využívá více než 30 zákazníků z řad prvních uživatelů.
E-commerce and cloud giant Amazon AMZN released new software to simplify adoption of its Trainium AI chips, while shares traded at $252.31, down 3.83%, at 11:55 a.m. ET Thursday. The pitch is straightforward: make switching easier, then turn that convenience into paying workloads. The valuation chart puts the stock just 0.11% above its $252.04 GF Value estimate, suggesting little discount against that benchmark despite the decline.
AWS Neuron 2.33 brings TorchNeuron into public beta, letting developers run standard PyTorch models on Trainium2 and Trainium3. It also introduces Neuron Observer, designed to flag chip health problems in under a second. According to Reuters, an Amazon chip executive said more than 30 early customers were already using TorchNeuron. That gives Amazon an initial adoption base. Sustained commercial use is the next test.
The financial opportunity goes beyond selling more computing capacity. Easier migration could help Amazon steer more AI spending toward its own chips and capture more of the economics. Reuters reported that AWS second-quarter revenue climbed 37% to $42.2 billion, giving the software push a substantial business to build on. Now Amazon needs those easier first steps to translate into recurring workloads, stronger utilization and profitable growth.
Amazon's cloud business is accelerating at its fastest pace in 18 quarters, but the company just burned through billions in free cash flow. Whether that spending fuels massive gains or derails a monthly investment plan depends on a few key…
If you put $1,000 a month into Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) starting with today’s price of $250, you would contribute $60,000 over five years.
Amazon deserves a forward look because its cloud business is speeding up again. AWS revenue grew 37% YoY last quarter, its fastest in 18 quarters, as demand for AI infrastructure rose.
What $1,000 a Month Could Grow to by 2031
Under the base case, $1,000 a month could be worth about $91,715.41 by 2031, a total return of 52.9% on the $60,000 you put in. It amounts to a gain of about $31,715.
The estimate assumes a five-year base-case target of $547.86 per share by October 17, 2031. For a share bought today, that would mean making 119.15%, or 16.99% a year.
The monthly plan returns less than a single share bought today because each later deposit has less time to grow. Your final contributions are invested for only a month or two. The dollar figures assume you invest at the start of each month and that the stock grows steadily at each scenario’s annualized rate.
Bull, Base and Bear Results for Your Monthly Plan
Scenario
5-Year Target Price
Share Total Return
Annualized Return
Value of $1,000/Month
Return on $60,000 Invested
Bull
$651.48
160.59%
21.11%
$101,398.77
69%
Base
$547.86
119.15%
16.99%
$91,715.41
52.9%
Bear
$360.38
44.15%
7.59%
$72,664.57
21.1%
Its confidence score is 0.7, which it rates as high. Wall Street is lopsided too. There are 16 Strong Buy ratings, 43 buy ratings, 2 hold ratings and 0 sell ratings.
The consensus price target is $331.46. Over a shorter window, the model’s one-year base target of $329.06 means 31.62% upside.
Three Growth Engines Behind the Target
AWS Is Accelerating on AI Demand
AWS now runs at a $169 billion annualized revenue rate, and its backlog has reached $496 billion. Amazon’s AI business and its chip business each exceeded a $25B annualized run rate with triple-digit growth (the power, cooling, and networking suppliers feeding that expansion are the subject of a free report on seven AI infrastructure names that aren’t chipmakers).
CEO Andy Jassy said on the earnings call that AWS could “very possibly be a trillion dollar annual revenue business for us in time.”
Advertising Keeps Compounding
Ad revenue rose 26% year-over-year to $19.8 billion. Ad slots for Thursday Night Football, the NBA and NASCAR “all sold out.” Advertising has high margins, so this growth adds to profits without needing the heavy spending that AWS requires.
Earnings Estimates Are Moving Higher
The average analyst estimate for 2026 EPS is $12.8977, up from $8.6938 90 days ago. Over the past 30 days, analysts made 4 up revisions and 0 down ones.
A one-time gain ballooned that 2026 number. Q2 GAAP EPS of $5.75 included a $53.4B pre-tax gain tied to Amazon’s Anthropic investment. That helps explain why the 2027 estimate is lower, at $10.5435.
Risks That Could Shrink Your Ending Balance
Spending is the biggest risk. Amazon plans about $200B of capital spending in 2026, and trailing 12-month free cash flow turned negative at -$7.6B. Jassy said the company will “encounter free cash flow headwinds until these data centers come online to be monetized.” If AI demand cools before that capacity pays off, the upside thesis falls apart quickly.
Management also pointed to tariffs, currency swings, memory chip supply and recession risk. Valuation matters as well: the stock trades at a P/E of 35 with a beta of 1.456, so it tends to swing more than the market.
Shares fell 4.74% in the past week alone. Over the last five years they making 46.67%, well below the projected pace. Even the bear case assumes a gain, and a real downturn could leave your plan below the $60,000 you put in.
Monthly investing does help with swings like these. When the price falls, each $1,000 buys more shares.
Where Your $60,000 Could Land
In all three scenarios, $1,000 a month in Amazon ends somewhere between $72,664.57 and $101,398.77 by 2031, with the base case at $91,715.41.
Watch AWS growth and free cash flow in each earnings report. Those two numbers will show which scenario is playing out. It is a projection, not investment advice, and no outcome is guaranteed.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares are in the spotlight Thursday, with earnings on deck, AWS growth and capital spending in focus, recent analyst activity, a technical setup showing improving momentum and Edge Rankings all drawing attention.
Amazon.com shares are under pressure. Why are AMZN shares declining?
Earnings Preview and HistoryAmazon is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on Oct. 29 after the market closes. Analysts estimate earnings per share of $1.96 along with revenue of $202.21 billion. For the prior quarter, Amazon reported earnings per share of $5.75, beating the consensus estimate of $1.82, which included a $53.4 billion gain tied to its Anthropic stake. The company also posted revenue of $200.61 billion, beating the consensus estimate of $196.46 billion.
What to Watch: AWS Growth, AI Spending and Advertising TrendsInvestors will be closely tracking AWS, after revenue grew 37% to $42.2 billion in the second quarter, its fastest growth in 18 quarters, with a backlog of $496 billion. Analysts expect AWS growth of 30% to 35% in the third quarter. Capital spending will also be in focus after Amazon raised its 2026 capex outlook to $220 billion from $200 billion.
Third-quarter guidance calls for net sales of $197 billion to $202 billion and operating income of $22.5 billion to $26.5 billion, and growth looks softer because Prime Day fell in the second quarter this year instead of the third, which Amazon said cost nearly 4 percentage points of growth. Advertising, which rose 26% to $19.8 billion last quarter, will be watched as well.
Analyst Consensus & Recent ActionsThe stock carries a Buy rating with an average price forecast of $335.62. Recent analyst moves include:
Morgan Stanley: Overweight (Raises Target to $350.00) (Oct. 19)
Wells Fargo: Overweight (Lowers Target to $329.00) (Oct. 12)
Cantor Fitzgerald: Overweight (Lowers Target to $310.00) (Oct. 12)
Amazon Trades 5.8% Above Its 200-Day Average, With Improving Momentum and a May Golden Cross IntactFrom a trend perspective, Amazon is still holding a constructive longer-term posture: it’s trading about 1.1% above the 20-day SMA ($254.46), about 0.4% above the 50-day SMA ($256.33), and roughly 5.8% above the 200-day SMA ($243.21). That said, the 20-day SMA remains below the 50-day SMA (a short-term bearish crossover), which can keep rallies choppy until price proves it can build separation above the short-term averages.
Momentum is best framed through MACD right now: MACD is above its signal line and the histogram is positive, which points to improving momentum versus the prior downswing even if price is still vulnerable to a pullback on a weak tape. In plain terms, when MACD is above the signal line, it suggests downside pressure is easing, and buyers are starting to regain control at the margin.
Key levels are tight enough to matter quickly if volatility picks up after the open:
Key Resistance: $259.50 — a nearby pivot area where rebounds can stall, sitting just above current price and close to the short-term moving-average zone
Key Support: $244.50 — a nearby level where buyers previously stepped in, also not far above the 200-day moving-average area that often acts as a trend "line in the sand"
Zooming out, the bigger-picture backdrop remains positive with the stock up 20.38% over the past 12 months, and the golden cross in May (50-day SMA above the 200-day SMA) still supports the longer-term uptrend narrative. Traders will also remember the recent swing high in August and swing low in September as the most recent range that can define breakout or breakdown risk.
Benzinga Edge RankingsBelow is the Benzinga Edge scorecard for Amazon, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses compared to the broader market:
Momentum: Bullish (Score: 75.56) — The stock’s trend profile is still supportive, even with premarket weakness.
Quality: Neutral (Score: 59.67) — Fundamentals screen as steady rather than standout, which can keep the stock trading more "macro-driven."
Value: Neutral (Score: 56.25) — Valuation looks closer to the middle of the pack, suggesting price may hinge more on execution and guidance than multiple expansion.
Growth: Bullish (Score: 92.19) — Growth is the clear pillar, helping explain why the stock can stay well-bid on longer timeframes.
The Verdict: Amazon’s Benzinga Edge signal reveals a growth-led profile with supportive momentum, which can help the stock recover quickly when index pressure fades. The main trade-off is that value and quality read more middle-of-the-road, so the next catalyst—especially earnings—may matter more than the multiple.
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Amazon Shares Edge LowerAMZN Price Action: At the time of publication, Amazon shares are trading 1.73% lower at $257.82, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
Image via Shutterstock
This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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Morgan Stanley recently tapped Amazon (AMZN -0.10%) as its "Top Pick," placing a $350 price target on the stock. Analyst Brian Nowak called Amazon a "Rule of 90" company, meaning its annual revenue growth rate and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margin could exceed 90%.The analyst said he sees five catalysts for the stock to climb higher.
First, Nowak sees Amazon's cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), growing faster than previously expected. He now expects AWS to grow by 47% next year and 42% in 2028, after Nvidia noted that Amazon is expected to buy 2 million of its graphics processing units (GPUs) over the next two years. The analyst also predicted that Amazon will spend a whopping $355 billion in capital expenditures in 2027 and $365 billion in 2028.
In addition to AWS revenue nearly tripling from $128.7 billion in 2025 to $373.6 billion in 2028, Nowak also expects the segment's operating margins to expand. He sees them coming in at 42% in 2027 and 44% in 2028, helping lead to $16.50 in adjusted EPS in 2028. The analyst also thinks increased visibility into its AI model service, Bedrock, could help drive multiple expansion for the stock.
On the e-commerce side, Morgan Stanley sees Amazon becoming an AI shopping winner and expects it to eventually team up with Meta Platforms and its Muse AI agent, which it has initially been reluctant to do.
Finally, Nowak called out Amazon's use of robotics, noting that for every 10% of units processed through a robot-powered fulfillment center, Amazon can save between $2 billion and $4 billion a year. He said that Amazon's efficiency is expanding quicker than he initially modeled.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Amazon is one of my favorite stocks right now and one I own. The company should continue to see AWS growth accelerate as its large AI infrastructure investments begin to kick in. It has large commitments from both Anthropic and OpenAI, with its backlog growing into the triple digits in Q2, ending the quarter at $496 billion. The company is getting a nice return on its chip and networking investments with a payback of less than three years, while locking in contracts for five years or more.
I think Amazon's AWS economics could improve even further if it can direct more of this business toward its own Trainum chips. In April, CEO Andy Jassy said its chip business has a revenue run rate of around $20 billion and is closer to $50 billion when including internal use. Meanwhile, rival Alphabet has said it is seeing a one-year payback on its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), so the opportunity is certainly there.
Regardless, Amazon has the best scale in the cloud computing space, and Jassy has said this could eventually become a $1 trillion revenue business.
AMZN Amazon$262.37-$0.26 (-0.10%)
NASDAQ · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/21/26
I also feel that Amazon's e-commerce operations are underappreciated. The business continues to see strong sales growth despite an uneven consumer environment. At the same time, it has some attractive new growth initiatives, including expanding its logistics network to offer high-margin, less-than-truckload shipping. Meanwhile, the company has quietly become one of the largest digital advertisers on the planet, and it continues to see strong growth in this high-gross margin business.
Perhaps the most underestimated part of the Amazon story, though, is its leadership in robotics. The company is the largest manufacturer and user of robots in the world, with a fleet of over 1 million robots, all controlled by its DeepFleet AI model. This is creating significant operational efficiencies in its e-commerce operations, leading to profit growth that far exceeds revenue growth.
With the stock trading at a forward P/E of 25 times 2027 analyst estimates, Amazon trades at a huge discount to brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart and Costco, making it a no-brainer buy in my view.
Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Costco Wholesale, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Walmart. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Jefferies očekává, že automatizace skladů posílí dlouhodobé marže Amazonu; vysoce automatizováno je zatím jen 40–45 % amerických distribučních center pro malé zásilky.
Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) could strengthen its retail margins through warehouse automation and an expanding logistics network, as investments in fulfillment capacity and third-party parcel delivery create new opportunities, according to Jefferies.
Following a discussion with a logistics industry expert, the broker said automation remains a key long-term competitive advantage for Amazon, helping reduce its exposure to labour shortages and wage inflation even if immediate cost savings prove limited.
Amazon has deployed more than 1 million robots, but the expert estimates only 40% to 45% of its US small-sortable fulfillment centers are highly automated, suggesting considerable room for further adoption.
Newer facilities can process around 1 million units on peak days with approximately 1,000 workers, compared with 2,500 to 3,000 historically. A US$1 hourly increase in warehouse and driver wages would add an estimated US$1.1 billion to operating expenses, highlighting the value of reducing labor dependency.
Jefferies also sees renewed investment in retail logistics, with gross logistics space additions rising from 56 million square feet in 2025 to 81 million in 2026. Amazon has around US$27 billion in visible capital expenditure planned over the next couple of years, covering automated fulfillment centers, inbound cross-docks and delivery infrastructure.
The broker identified third-party parcel delivery as another potential growth area. Amazon could expand its US delivery stations from approximately 575 to 950 by 2030, allowing it to handle more shipments currently managed by UPS and the US Postal Service.
Early trials reportedly show 20% to 25% savings for business-to-consumer shippers, partly because Amazon avoids some residential, weekend and package surcharges charged by established carriers. However, execution during peak shopping periods remains a key test.
Grocery presents a more difficult challenge. Delivery costs of US$10 to US$12 per order make smaller baskets challenging to profitably serve.
Jefferies sees potential in Amazon's planned Illinois hybrid retail and fulfillment concept, expected in 2028, which would combine large-format shopping with automated rapid delivery.
The broker remains constructive on Amazon's margin outlook, expecting fulfillment efficiencies and AWS operating leverage to offset the structural challenges of its retail business.
Amazon díky rozšířenému doručování čerstvých potravin ještě tentýž den ukrajuje tržní podíl tradičním supermarketům; prodej mořských plodů, mléčných výrobků a ovoce mezi červnem a srpnem několikanásobně vzrostl.
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Amazon's expanded fresh food delivery is helping it win market share from more traditional retailers. : Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Amazon is gaining ground in grocery thanks to items like fresh shrimp and berries.
Roughly a year after expanding same-day fresh grocery delivery to thousands of cities and towns in the US, Amazon's perishable grocery sales are booming — and taking market share from traditional retailers, according to data from market research firm Nielsen IQ.
Sales of groceries such as seafood, dairy, and produce on Amazon increased severalfold between June and August, per Nielsen IQ's data. Amazon also posted market share gains in the food category for the year through late August as traditional grocery stores lost it, Nielsen found.
Amazon gained market share in food sales, both overall and online, as rivals such as grocery stores lost it. Nielsen IQ "Shoppers are increasingly embracing Amazon for categories that historically represented one of the largest barriers to online grocery adoption," Nielsen wrote in its report.
Amazon has spent years trying to break into grocery, though it hasn't hit a home run in the category as it did with books or cloud computing. The company acquired Whole Foods, opened and shuttered another brick-and-mortar grocery chain, and created a selection of private-label groceries, among other steps.
The Nielsen IQ data suggest that Amazon's latest push — toward delivering fresh groceries quickly across much of the US — is yielding some results in the competitive grocery space.
Many of the shoppers buying fresh foods on Amazon come from households with incomes over $100,000 and tend to be older, according to Nielsen IQ. They also tend to be frequent Amazon users, placing more orders and spending more money on the platform than an average user.
That means fresh groceries, one of the most frequent purchases for US households, are "a potentially important lever for increasing shopper frequency and overall spend" on Amazon, the report reads.
To keep the momentum going, Amazon will need to take on formidable rivals. One is Walmart, which already uses its stores and its own army of gig workers to deliver groceries same-day.
Amazon is considering opening about 1,000 same-day fulfillment centers around the US by 2031, Business Insider reported in September. That move would create the same sort of advantage that Walmart has by placing more fulfillment centers close to more customers, one analyst said.
Do you have a story idea about Amazon's retail operations? Contact this reporter at [email protected] or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.
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Alex Bitter is a senior retail reporter covering Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and related companies. His coverage ranges from the experiences of gig workers to what's happening inside the world's biggest ride-hailing and delivery companies.Alex has also written about the retail and food industries. Convenience store chain Sheetz ended its "smile policy" after his reporting. Alex lives in the Washington, DC, area, where you can find him studying ancient coins or searching for Civil War artifacts with his metal detector in his free time.Got a tip? Reach out at [email protected] or via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (808) 854-4501.
Amazon Grocery Food More Delivery Retail E-Commerce
Shares of Amazon (AMZN +0.07%) leaped about 5% on Monday. Still, the stock trades near $262 as I write, about 8% off its record close of $284.02 on Aug. 3.
For those buying today, though, the more helpful yardstick is an S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.28%) index fund. From 1928 through 2025, the index compounded at about 10% a year with dividends reinvested, according to historical data gathered by New York University professor Aswath Damodaran. Any one stock needs to beat that to be worth the added risk.
I think Amazon will beat it over the next five years, mostly because its profits are growing far faster than its sales.
Image source: Getty Images.
Profits are growing faster than salesAmazon's net income isn't a good gauge now. Its second-quarter net income of $62.6 billion included $53.4 billion in pre-tax non-operating income, mainly from its investments in Anthropic.
Operating income leaves gains like that out, giving a better look at the business itself. And the business looks impressive. Amazon's operating income more than tripled from $22.9 billion in 2020 to $80 billion in 2025, compounding at around 28% a year.
It's still climbing fast, hitting $93.7 billion in the 12 months through June, up 23% year over year.
This growth rate is accelerating, too. By the same measure, trailing-12-month operating income rose around 17% as of December and 19% as of March.
Trailing-12-month sales, in comparison, rose about 16% year over year. Put another way, every dollar of sales is turning into more profit than before.
Can earnings keep this up?Driving much of the profit growth, Amazon Web Services (AWS) earned $54.7 billion in operating income over the trailing 12 months. That was around 58% of the company's total, from a segment pulling in under a fifth of its sales.
And the cloud computing arm is still speeding up, as AWS revenue rose 37% from the year-ago quarter.
Advertising is another engine. Second-quarter ad sales reached $19.8 billion, a 26% rise over the year-ago period, after staying at around 22% growth (excluding foreign exchange) for four straight quarters.
Ads sold on Amazon's own store pages are arguably among its most profitable sales, but the company doesn't report their margins.
Amazon's retail side is getting more profitable, too. Its North America segment had an operating margin of 7.4% for the trailing 12 months, up from 7% a year earlier. That might not seem like much. But on $454 billion in trailing sales, every extra percentage point of margin adds around $4.5 billion in yearly operating income.
Still, Amazon is paying a lot for this growth. Its net purchases of property and equipment climbed by $66.1 billion over the trailing 12 months, mainly for artificial intelligence (AI). Free cash flow for the same span was a $7.6 billion outflow. And depreciation on all these new data centers may drag down earnings for years to come. But most of this spending is going into AWS, the unit already posting the highest margin.
Management expects third-quarter operating income of $22.5 billion to $26.5 billion, versus $17.4 billion a year before. The company reports those results on Oct. 29.
I think Amazon can grow earnings around 15% yearly through 2031. Even that rate is about half what it did in the last five years -- leaving room for AWS growth to slow.
AMZN Amazon$262.63+$0.18 (+0.07%)
NASDAQ · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/20/26
Amazon doesn't need a perfect five yearsThe stock isn't cheap. At roughly $262, shares trade at about 25 times expected 2027 earnings, using analysts' consensus estimate. The S&P 500 trades at about 19 times its expected earnings over the next 12 months, according to FactSet.
Even against a later year's profits, then, investors pay a premium for Amazon.
But say the premium drops. If Amazon's earnings rise 15% a year and its price-to-earnings ratio eases from about 25 to about 22 by late 2031, the stock would return about 12% a year. This would put shares near $460.
Simply matching the index's long-run 10% would take earnings growth of only about 13% a year at that same lower price-to-earnings ratio.
In the end, I expect Amazon stock to beat the S&P 500 over the next five years, though likely by only a couple of percentage points a year. AWS growth might cool, and the AI spending may take longer to pay off than management hopes. But the stock doesn't need everything to work out to beat the index's long-run return.
Sure, every five-year forecast is partly guesswork. Even so, at today's price, I'd rather hold Amazon than the index fund.
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Amazon says its seasonal job listings often fill within minutes of posting.
Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Amazon plans to boost its seasonal workforce by 20%, assembling its largest temporary workforce ever.
The e-commerce giant aims to hire 300,000 employees during the holiday rush for its fulfillment and transportation network across the US. The target is up from 250,000 for each of the prior three years. It also plans to offer healthcare coverage on day one of employment for full-time, part-time, and seasonal hourly workers with at least 30 hours a week scheduled, starting January 1.
Seasonal workers who join before January 1 will begin receiving healthcare on that date, the company said. Workers who join after will have access from their first date of hire. The company hires seasonal workers year-round.
Amazon health plans start at $5 a week and include $5 copays. The company previously said part-time and seasonal employees qualified for medical insurance after 90 days, depending on the number of hours worked.
The company says seasonal employees can earn an average wage of more than $20 per hour, while full- and part-time regular employees see an average of nearly $24 per hour. Last month, Amazon increased its minimum pay for core operations workers to $20 an hour and gave all US workers new grocery discounts.
Seasonal hiring has been somewhat of a mixed bag this year, with some traditional retailers like Walmart and Target opting to tap into their existing workforces. Others, like Spirit Halloween, Michael's, and Dick's Sporting Goods have announced plans to collectively hire approximately 73,000 people this year.
A report last week from Indeed found that the seasonal hiring window is starting earlier in the year and shifting from conventional in-store retail toward more e-commerce fulfillment roles.
Amazon says its seasonal roles often fill within minutes of being posted, and that some seasonal workers ultimately find a longer-term position with the company.
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Dominick Reuter
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Dominick Reuter is a senior retail reporter for Business Insider, primarily covering Walmart, Target, Costco, and other big box retailers. His stories tend to focus on issues and trends that affect employees and customers, such as affordability challenges and the growing race to provide ultra-fast delivery services on e-commerce orders.Prior to joining BI in 2019, Dominick worked for more than a decade as an independent photojournalist covering a wide range of stories for global wire services and newspapers, including Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and Agence France-Presse.Dominick studied photojournalism at Boston University and later earned a Masters in business and economics journalism from Columbia University.If you're an employee or customer with a story to share, please contact me via email or text/call/Signal at 646-768-4750.
Amazon reports Q3 earnings on Oct. 29, and history says the stock pops. But the earnings beat is the least interesting part of the investment case right now.
I keep following Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction), and with third-quarter results due Oct. 29, the stock is back in focus. Amazon beat Q3 EPS estimates in 2023, 2024, and 2025, and the stock rose 6.83%, 6.19%, and 9.58% on those earnings days. I count that run as a bonus. My real reason sits inside AWS.
AWS Is Reaccelerating, and I Want to Own That Curve
AWS growth went from 20% in Q3 2025 to 24%, then 28%, then 37% in Q2 2026. That quarter delivered $42.23 billion in revenue at a 39.4% operating margin. The backlog stands at $496 billion, growing triple digits. The AI and chips businesses each run above $25 billion annually. Management says AWS could “very possibly be a trillion dollar annual revenue business for us in time.” That compounding engine supports the long-term investment case.
Three Data Points Behind the Amazon Thesis
First, growth is broadening. Q2 revenue hit $200.61 billion, up 19.62%, while operating income rose 43.24% to $27.46 billion. Advertising alone brought in $19.81 billion, up 26%.
Second, its financial position can support the expansion. The debt-to-equity ratio sits at 0.37, interest coverage at 35.17, and cash at $78.21 billion.
Third, the long record rewards patience. Shares gained 540.91% over ten years. Amazon pays no dividend, so reinvested profits do the compounding.
How Amazon Stacks Up Against Microsoft and Alphabet
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) trades at a lower P/E of 30 against Amazon’s 36. Its latest-quarter operating income grew 18.3%, while Amazon’s grew 43.24%. Amazon’s premium reflects faster profit growth.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) looks cheap at 15 times earnings. To fund its AI buildout, though, it raised roughly $70 billion in equity and debt, suspended buybacks, and lifted long-term debt from $46.5 billion to $98.2 billion. I prefer Amazon’s net debt to EBITDA of 0.45 and no share issuance on that scale.
Risk That Could Actually Hurt Me
Free cash flow turned negative at -$7.6 billion on a trailing basis, and Amazon plans about $200 billion in 2026 capex (all of which has to be powered, cooled, and connected by somebody, which is the whole point of our free report on seven suppliers behind the AI buildout). The P/FCF ratio of 367.88 shows it. Reported earnings also include a $53.4 billion Anthropic gain; adjusted EPS came in at $1.88 versus a $1.83 estimate. Jassy admits Amazon will “encounter free cash flow headwinds until these data centers come online.”
I accept that because servers break even in a little less than three years, last five to six years, and most AI capacity is contracted for at least five-year terms. Most of 2027 capacity is already reserved.
Why AWS Momentum Matters Into Earnings
Jassy notes 85% of global IT spending still sits on-premises. Q3 guidance calls for operating income of $22.5 billion to $26.5 billion versus $17.4 billion a year ago. Oct. 29 will show whether AWS keeps compounding.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Amazon v roce 2027 investuje v Německu více než 16 miliard EUR do cloudu, umělé inteligence, satelitního internetu a médií, včetně 4,8 miliardy EUR do AWS ve Frankfurtu.
Amazon (AMZN.O) plans to invest more than €16 billion (about $18 billion) in Germany in 2027, the company said on Tuesday, to expand its cloud computing, AI, satellite internet and media businesses.
The investment is the e-commerce giant's latest move to grow its European operations as it races to expand cloud infrastructure across the region amid surging demand for AI services and growing competition among technology firms.
The package, announced at the Invest in Germany Summit in Berlin, adds to more than €100 billion Amazon says it has invested in the country since 2010.
The latest investment includes €4.8 billion to expand Amazon Web Services' Frankfurt cloud region and AI infrastructure.
It also includes new logistics projects expected to create more than 3,000 jobs, development of the Amazon Leo satellite broadband network, and new Prime Video productions.
Amazon also plans to open a second robotics and AI research lab in Berlin.
Tuesday's commitment follows a €10 billion investment announced in June 2024 to expand its cloud infrastructure and logistics network in Germany, including €8.8 billion for AWS data centres.
AWS představila TorchNeuron, který umožňuje aplikacím PyTorch běžet na čipech Trainium po změně jediného řádku konfigurace, bez nutnosti přepisovat kód, a zpochybňuje tak softwarovou výhodu společnosti Nvidia.
On Monday, Amazon Web Services released a tool called TorchNeuron that lets AI startups easily move their AI apps onto Amazon’s AI chip, Trainium. In doing so, Amazon is also taking a direct stab at the the software advantage that has helped Nvidia become the default hardware choice for AI apps, and spurred its rise as AI hardware provider of choice.
TorchNeuron works with PyTorch, a free, open-source toolkit that developers use to build, train, and run AI models. It lets AI apps written with PyTorch run on Trainium by changing just one line of configuration, according to Amazon — no code rewrite required.
Amazon says about 85% of AI apps are written with PyTorch. Facebook originally developed it, but since 2022, it has been part of the Linux Foundation, which maintains open-source projects. Nvidia has spent years ensuring its CUDA software — the software infrastructure that allows apps to run on Nvidia GPUs and its other hardware — seamlessly supports AI apps written with PyTorch. As a result, Nvidia’s hardware is now deeply embedded in the toolkit, essentially by default.
TorchNeuron is adapted from PyTorch, so developers who know PyTorch already know how to use it. Amazon isn’t the first company to attempt to easily bring their chips to the platform. PyTorch users can also port their apps to AMD GPUs or even Apple’s chips with a simple configuration change.
However, Amazon argues that porting to Trainium isn’t just easy; it also gives AI startups access to Amazon’s entire cloud. Unsurprisingly, AWS claims that this is a better choice for startups than using neoclouds, many of which are tied to Nvidia and its hardware, like Coreweave, Nebius, and Firmus.
“You’re building on AWS. You’re not betting on a single-purpose compute provider and scrambling to build everything else around it,” Colin Brace, VP of Technology Software at AWS Annapurna Labs (the unit that makes Amazon’s custom chips) told TechCrunch via email. “On AWS,” he continued, “the infrastructure to go from prototype to production is already there, allowing a founder to move fast and scale when they need to.”
AWS says that because the same chip both handles training (teaching the AI model) and inference (putting the finished model to work, as when it answers a user’s question), and is tightly integrated with the cloud infrastructure that startups need, its cloud will save them money, even if AWS doesn’t offer the cheapest per-token price.
“Trainium’s value is price-performance plus the fact that it’s one platform for both training and inference, which improves the economics across a full workload,” Brace said. “Look at Deepgram — they moved to Trainium using native PyTorch, support and they’re processing 70% more audio per dollar at production-grade accuracy.” Deepgram is an AI voice app provider, a competitor to ElevenLabs.
But Amazon isn’t content to just give PyTorch app developers an easy option to move to its cloud.
Amazon also says it is pushing PyTorch to be less automatically centered on Nvidia, and it will contribute the code to do that to the main PyTorch project. In the blog post announcing the new tool, the company wrote:
“Amazon’s approach extends beyond its own hardware. The company is contributing changes upstream to PyTorch itself, working with the PyTorch community to remove code that ties the framework to specific chips. The goal is to make PyTorch more hardware-agnostic for the entire developer community, not just Trainium users.”
While such a tactic is undoubtedly good for those who are selling hardware and cloud services that compete with Nvidia, one of the points of PyTorch is to hide all the pesky difficulties of getting AI code to run on hardware. We’ll have to wait and see if pushing Nvidia out that far gives developers more choice and more affordable options, as Amazon promises, or just more configuration headaches.
Either way, if Amazon succeeds in deeply uncoupling PyTorch from Nvidia, this could have much bigger ramifications for the GPU giant than simply dealing with chip competitors. As Brace said: “The real story is removing the lock-in that kept developers from having a real choice at all.”
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Amazon is funding development of a proposed 960-megawatt nuclear plant in Indiana and would be the first customer to buy its power, the companies announced Monday. Utility company American Electric Power (AEP) would operate the plant. X-energy, which designs small modular nuclear reactors and went public in April, would supply the reactors.
The new power plant would consist of 12 Xe-100 small modular reactors and be located on the site of a demolished coal power plant just south of Terre Haute. The deal is the second commercial agreement between Amazon and X-energy, and it’s three times larger than the first, which was announced two years ago.
Amazon has invested heavily in X-energy, leading a $700 million Series C-1 round in October 2024. The two companies have said they ultimately plan to build 5 gigawatts of new nuclear generating capacity in the U.S. by 2039.
Unlike many newly announced power plants, these reactors would be connected to the public electric grid, though Amazon says the power would also serve its data centers.
The companies’ aggressive timeline still depends on X-energy successfully delivering its first power plant at a Dow Chemical plant southeast of Houston, Texas. The site, called Seadrift, has recently been at the center of a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas, which accuses the plant of “habitual non-compliance” with water and solid-waste regulations and permits.
X-energy has yet to break ground at Seadrift, which will host four Xe-100 reactors to provide the chemical plant with heat and electricity. The company said its construction permit is in the final phases of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review process.
Startups and large cloud computing companies are betting that small modular reactors (SMRs), like the kind being developed by X-energy, will help pull the nuclear industry out of its slump. The most recent nuclear power plants built in the U.S. suffered from egregious budget overruns and slipped timelines.
By shrinking the reactor, companies like X-energy hope that mass manufacturing will costs and schedules in line. Even then, it could be a tall order. Experts say mass manufacturing often doesn’t start producing benefits for about a decade.
X-energy debuted on the Nasdaq in April in an IPO priced at $23 per share. Investor excitement drove the price up 27% in the first day of trading, but shares of the newly public company have dropped by nearly two-thirds since then.
News of the Amazon deal sent X-energy’s shares up about 10% in pre-market trading, though they were down by less than 2% at the time of publication.
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Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor.
De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing [email protected].
Morgan Stanley označila Amazon za svůj hlavní tip, zvýšila cílovou cenu z 335 USD na 350 USD a očekává růst tržeb AWS o 47 % v roce 2027 a o 42 % v roce 2028.
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares are trading higher Monday after Morgan Stanley named the stock a top pick and raised its price target to $350 from $335.
Amazon shares are trending higher. Why is AMZN stock advancing? Morgan Stanley Names Amazon a Top Pick, Raises Its Target to $350 and Lifts AWS Growth ForecastsIn a note titled "Amazon to Top Pick and 5 Catalysts to Deliver Outperformance," Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak kept an Overweight rating and raised his price target to $350 from $335, about 40% above Friday’s $250.00 close. He sees a 3-to-1 risk-reward ratio, with a $220 bear case and a $410 bull case and bases the target on about 21 times his 2028 earnings per share estimate of roughly $16.50. His five catalysts are continued AWS growth, AWS margin beats, greater visibility into Bedrock, Amazon’s role in agentic shopping and robotics. He now expects AWS revenue to grow 47% in 2027 and 42% in 2028, up from 41% and 37%, after Nvidia indicated AWS expects to deploy 2 million GPUs in 2027 and 2028.
"We continue to think AWS’s growth and profit runway is under-appreciated," Nowak wrote.
Amazon Also Funds a 960 MW Nuclear Project in Indiana With X-energy and AEPSeparately, X-Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:XE) and American Electric Power Company Inc. (NASDAQ:AEP) announced Monday a joint development agreement to advance feasibility work for a proposed 12-unit Xe-100 small modular reactor plant near the former Breed Generating Station in Sullivan County, Indiana. The project would provide 960 MW of power, and Amazon will provide development funding. It is the second commercial deployment under X-energy and Amazon’s collaboration to bring more than 5 GW of new nuclear capacity to the U.S. grid by 2039, joining Energy Northwest’s Cascade project in Washington State.
"Together, we’re looking to develop nearly a gigawatt of carbon-free power for the regional grid and pay our full costs without passing them to others," said Josh Weissman, vice president of data center infrastructure capacity delivery at Amazon.
Amazon Reports Third-Quarter Results Oct. 29Amazon reports after the market closes on Oct. 29. Analysts estimate earnings per share of $1.96 and revenue of $202.21 billion. In the second quarter, Amazon reported earnings per share of $5.75, beating the consensus estimate of $1.82, with unrealized investment gains contributing, and revenue of $200.61 billion, beating the consensus estimate of $196.46 billion. It guided to third-quarter net sales of $197 billion to $202 billion.
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Amazon Shares Climb HigherAMZN Price Action: At the time of publication, Amazon shares are trading 2.08% higher at $255.19, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of infrastructure services at Amazon Web Services BASTIEN INZAURRALDE/AFP via Getty Images At an internal staff meeting in September, AWS CFO John Felton had a joke for Prasad Kalyanaraman, the executive overseeing much of Amazon's AI infrastructure expansion.
"You've taken us free cash flow negative as a company, so congratulations," Felton said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by Business Insider.
The remark was lighthearted. But it captured a stunning reversal.
Just two years ago, Wall Street was debating what Amazon would do with its growing cash hoard. Now, cash flow has evaporated as Amazon embarks on its biggest bet ever, spending $220 billion this year alone to build the physical backbone for AI.
At the meeting, Kalyanaraman did not dispute Felton's premise. Amazon's machine-learning and AI business is "hugely free cash flow negative," he said, adding that he expects the company's free cash flow to remain negative for "the next couple of years or so."
What are the real-life consequences of AI?
Amazon has made big bets before. It spent heavily on cloud computing, fulfillment centers, and its delivery network long before they became some of the company's most valuable assets. Investors questioned those investments at the time, but Amazon ultimately built enormous, profitable businesses from them.
AI is testing this playbook at a far larger scale. Amazon is committing hundreds of billions of dollars to data centers, servers, and power before investors know how quickly those investments will generate revenue.
The company is the best, or among the best, at building data centers, with decades of experience. But the size and complexity of these projects, and the bottlenecks holding progress back, are challenging — even for such a respected cloud pioneer.
Internal documents reviewed by Business Insider and people familiar with the matter show the company trying to coordinate a sprawling industrial system whose parts move on different schedules. A delay in power, equipment, or construction can leave billions of dollars in hardware waiting — and Amazon's cash tied up — while forecasts and costs keep shifting.
Why Amazon thinks it will workAmazon says it has strong evidence that the capacity will be needed. AWS revenue grew 37% in the second quarter, its fastest pace in 18 quarters, while its backlog reached $496 billion.
CEO Andy Jassy thinks the company has a "clear line of sight" to strong financial returns from this record investment cycle. In his latest annual shareholder letter, he called AI a "once in a lifetime opportunity" and said Amazon would not be conservative in its investments.
"We've been through this cycle with the first big AWS growth wave, and liked the results," Jassy wrote. "We expect to feel similarly about this next wave."
Investors are concerned by the scale of the industry's expansion, especially as AI data centers are costing more to build and taking longer to complete.
The market is "repricing anything that funds multi-year builds against revenue that arrives later," Dan Ives, an analyst at Yorkville Ives, wrote in a recent report. Growing uncertainty around data center permitting and the political fight over electricity prices have given investors another reason to question how quickly these investments will pay off, he added.
Racks, but not enough powerOne major industry challenge is securing enough power to run the equipment that goes inside data centers. This includes expensive racks of servers that contain GPUs and other chips that train and run AI models and services such as ChatGPT.
Internal emails from August show Amazon preparing a new "Early Rack Receipt" process for an expected wave of server racks carrying Nvidia's GB300 chips at US facilities before final deployment.
One Amazon email projected the company would take delivery of about $5 billion of Nvidia GB300 racks in August, followed by another roughly $3 billion each month "for the foreseeable future."
Some AWS data center sites had room for more racks but not enough available power to turn them on, people familiar with the effort said, leaving the equipment to be staged at intermediary warehouses until the facilities were ready. These people asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters.
Timing and coordinationUsually, Amazon doesn't pay for racks until the gear is put into a data center, leaving suppliers to carry the cost of the equipment in transit, according to the internal documents obtained by Business Insider. This helps the company conserve cash.
However, the intensity of the AI data center building boom has made this type of coordination harder. Amazon has to compete more for scarce resources as it jockeys with rivals for access to Nvidia GPUs and other AI components.
Under the new "Early Rack Receipt" process, Amazon now takes ownership of these racks earlier in the supply chain, rather than waiting until the equipment reaches a data center.
The means spending cash sooner. And any delays getting the racks installed and plugged into a reliable power source potentially pushes back the moment when revenue starts flowing from these assets.
At least one AWS supply chain team did not have "a clear forecasted path" for getting racks into data centers, according to one of the emails reviewed by Business Insider.
An Amazon spokesperson said the company routinely stages finished hardware near deployment sites so it can be installed once power capacity is available, calling that approach "best business practice."
The spokesperson added that AWS has "long-established systems" to track infrastructure assets and disputed that the broader company lacks a forecasted path for getting racks into data centers.
This problem is not unique to Amazon.
Bernstein analysts wrote in a recent note that power permits, cooling systems, electrical equipment, construction, and hardware all move on separate schedules.
"Timing is imperfect," the analysts said.
"Inherently uncertain"
John Felton, Chief Financial Officer of Amazon Web Services Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images During the internal staff meeting in September, Felton, the AWS CFO, described the broader problem eloquently: "How do you work in the future when the future is inherently uncertain?"
Kalyanaraman, the AI infrastructure leader, said Amazon's internal outlook for the return on its AI investments had improved. But the assumptions behind those returns keep shifting.
"The forecast is changing on a daily basis," Kalyanaraman said. "The world that we live in is extremely dynamic."
Those shifting assumptions include when data centers will be ready and how much equipment AWS needs to keep on hand, he explained.
An eight-week supply buffer might be routine for a smaller company. But at Amazon's scale, Kalyanaraman said, this could mean holding "billions and billions of dollars" worth of additional equipment inventory — tying up precious cash.
Frugality meets the AI boomSuch tensions are especially striking for Kalyanaraman, a 21-year Amazon veteran who earlier this year was promoted to the elite S-team that reports directly to Jassy.
Amazon's founding story is defined by frugality. It famously used cheap doors as desks when founder Jeff Bezos started in Seattle in the mid-90s.
Kalyanaraman has absorbed this lore into bones. In late 2023, as AWS faced slower growth and layoffs, he urged employees to do more with less. "Frugality breeds innovation," he said back then.
That instinct still shapes his approach. In the September meeting this year, Kalyanaraman told Felton that AWS tries to make major investments at the "last responsible moment," when it has the clearest possible view of demand.
"If we can wait to spend the capital as late as possible, it's better for us," he said.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Bloomberg/Getty Images But the frenetic pace of the AI boom makes this principle difficult to follow. By the time demand is fully visible, the servers, power, and construction capabilities that AWS needs may no longer be available. That puts pressure on the company to commit more money sooner to secure supply and meet its data center capacity goals.
Kalyanaraman recalled telling Jassy in 2023 that AWS would "surely" be out of its capacity crunch by 2027. Instead, Amazon still expects demand to exceed its available capacity in 2027, the AI infrastructure chief said during the meeting this September.
Secured Power at RiskGetting enough electricity may be the biggest challenge for an industry leader like Amazon.
The company has 44 gigawatts of data center capacity under development across 16 states, more than double Google, Meta, and Microsoft, according to Cleanview Research estimates.
An internal AWS dashboard called "Secured Power at Risk" tracks utility and regulatory constraints affecting electricity capacity AWS has lined up for its data centers.
The risks include transmission bottlenecks, requirements to reduce use during grid stress, and "use it or lose it" provisions that can jeopardize capacity if a data center project misses usage or construction milestones.
In other words, AWS is not simply waiting for electricity to arrive. It is managing a portfolio of commitments that can become more costly if a data center project is delayed.
Maryland proposalsA submission to Maryland's utility regulator last year, obtained through a public records request, illustrates the kind of exposure that can accompany massive data center buildouts.
Amazon told the Maryland Public Service Commission that large data center customers could help pay for grid upgrades or bring new power capacity to market without burdening other electricity ratepayers.
The company also proposed setting aside collateral to help utilities get more comfortable with the large investments needed to generate more electricity for data centers. Amazon proposed three years of collateral so that if a large electricity customer abandoned unused capacity, the utility would have time to re-sell the power.
The proposal is not evidence that AWS has made such a payment or posted collateral. It does, however, show that large data centers can face extra financial obligations, beyond their own electricity bills, if projects are delayed or cancelled.
The Amazon spokesperson said such utility rules are not unique to AWS. The company has not disclosed how much cash it has paid upfront to secure power.
New constraints 'keep popping up'The AI buildout also incurs expenses that are harder to model than a conventional capex plan.
In the September meeting this year, Kalyanaraman said that while reviewing plans for gigawatts of capacity in West Texas, AWS confronted a labor problem: There weren't enough nearby pipefitters, electricians, and other skilled workers to build the facilities.
The company's response, he said, was to pay to construct housing complexes near its data centers so workers could live there for the two or three years needed to complete the projects.
Even the crates used to ship servers have become a planning issue. It may seem absurd to worry about the price of a container when servers cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Kalyanaraman said. But at AWS's scale, where the company needs so many crates, even trivial items can become a material expense.
"We have new constraints that keep popping up," Kalyanaraman said.
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Eugene is Business Insider’s Chief Tech Correspondent, where he leads coverage of Amazon. His reporting spans the company’s retail and logistics operations to AWS, Alexa, and its internal culture.Previously, he worked at CNBC, Fortune Magazine Korea, and Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun. He holds degrees from NYU and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.In 2022, Eugene reported on internal documents indicating that Amazon allegedly used deceptive tactics to enroll customers in Prime and made cancellation difficult. The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon the following year, citing his reporting. The case ended in a record $2.5 billion settlement in 2025.His work has received multiple honors, including the SF Press Club’s Bay Area Journalism Award and SPJ NorCal’s Excellence in Journalism Award.Eugene lives in the Bay Area. Contact him via email at [email protected], or Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 650-942-3061. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.
Amazon Big Tech AWS More Artificial Intelligence Exclusive Data Centers AI Insider
It's nearly Amazon's (AMZN -1.87%) turn to step up to the earnings podium. The e-commerce and cloud computing mega-giant is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on Oct. 29, and I think investors have plenty of reasons to be optimistic.
Amazon spent much of 2026 defending its massive investments in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, with capital expenditures expected to reach approximately $220 billion this year. That's an enormous amount of money, even for a company of Amazon's size.
However, the market isn't necessarily impressed by big spending announcements anymore. I've argued that Wall Street is in the "show-me" phase of AI, where investors want evidence that those investments are generating meaningful returns.
Image source: Amazon.
Amazon delivered some of that evidence in July, when its cloud computing business reported outstanding growth and Amazon stock jumped 12% in a single day. If that momentum continues into Q3, I think Amazon stock could soar once again following its upcoming earnings report.
Amazon is giving Wall Street what it wants
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is unquestionably the company's most important generator of profits, even though its online retail operations account for a much larger share of revenue. AWS revenue increased 37% from a year ago to $42.2 billion in the second quarter, its fastest growth in 18 quarters. Operating income jumped to $16.6 billion from $10.2 billion a year earlier.
That's particularly impressive when compared with Amazon's retail operations. Its North America segment generated $116.2 billion in revenue, but only $9.1 billion in operating income.
AWS also reported an annualized revenue run rate exceeding $25 billion for its AI business, while its custom chips business, which includes the Trainium AI processor, reached a similar annualized pace.
Those figures demonstrate that Amazon is doing more than building expensive data centers and hoping customers eventually show up. Companies are already paying for the computing capacity and AI services that AWS provides.
The demand isn't limited to one customer or application. Amazon has announced agreements involving companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Pinterest, and Uber Technologies.
That's the kind of evidence investors should be looking for during the show-me phase of AI.
Anthropic gives Amazon another advantage
Amazon's relationship with Anthropic, the developer of the Claude family of AI models, provides another interesting opportunity.
Amazon has invested $13 billion in Anthropic, and the companies have an extensive cloud computing relationship. Anthropic uses AWS infrastructure and Amazon's custom AI chips to support its growing computing requirements.
That arrangement gives Amazon two potential ways to benefit from Anthropic's expansion. First, AWS can generate revenue by supplying computing capacity to Anthropic. Second, Amazon could benefit from an appreciation in the value of its investment in the AI company.
In fact, Amazon's Q2 results included $53.4 billion in non-operating pretax income, primarily attributable to its Anthropic investment. That's an impressive gain, but there's an important distinction. Investment-related accounting gains aren't the same as recurring profits generated by AWS operations.
For that reason, I'll be paying much closer attention to AWS revenue and operating income than to any additional gains associated with Anthropic's valuation. Amazon doesn't need another enormous paper gain to demonstrate that its AI strategy is working. Continued growth in its cloud business would be much more meaningful.
AMZN Amazon$250.00-$4.76 (-1.87%)
NASDAQ · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/16/26
The $220 billion question
Amazon's spending comes with a substantial financial cost. It reported negative free cash flow of $7.6 billion for the 12 months ending June 30, compared with positive free cash flow of $18.2 billion during the preceding 12-month period.
Amazon attributed much of that deterioration to increased spending on property and equipment, primarily related to AI investments.
I think there's a huge difference between spending aggressively without meaningful customer demand and spending aggressively while your most profitable business is expanding at its fastest pace in years. Amazon appears to be in the latter category.
The Q3 report should provide another opportunity to evaluate that argument. Investors will want to see continued AWS revenue growth, healthy operating income, and evidence that demand for AI computing remains strong.
Another strong AWS quarter could go a long way toward addressing those concerns -- and provide the catalyst for a substantial post-earnings rally that I think Amazon will deliver after Oct. 29.
Bývalý bezpečnostní inženýr AWS kritizuje zařízení Amazon Bee: lidé v jeho okolí nemají praktickou možnost odmítnout nahrávání ani odstranit své údaje z přepisů.
Amazon Bee’s recording light is easy to miss, says a former AWS security engineer. (Amazon Image) Amazon’s new Bee AI devices ask the wrong person for consent, according to a privacy and security veteran who previously worked as a senior principal security engineer at Amazon Web Services.
In a LinkedIn article, Jeff Williams writes that Bee’s consent safeguards are aimed at the wearer, while the people being recorded have no practical way to say no.
Amazon unveiled the devices Thursday, the first new Bee hardware since it acquired the San Francisco startup last year. The $74.99 Bee Frontier goes on the wrist or clips to clothing, and the $99.99 Bee Eclipse snaps onto the back of a phone.
Both turn conversations into summaries and to-do lists, with connections to Amazon.com and Alexa+ for paid subscribers.
How Bee handles consent: Amazon says users are prompted to get permission from call participants each time they start a recording, and the devices show an indicator light while in use.
The problem, Williams says, is that neither one reliably tells the other people in a conversation that they’re being recorded. He writes that the prompt appears only on the wearer’s phone, and nothing enforces it.
“A prompt instructing the user to obtain permission is a liability allocation,” he wrote, arguing that Amazon is shifting responsibility for obtaining consent onto the wearer.
The light is easy to hide under a sleeve or in a pocket, he notes, and a device on the wrist or phone sits outside the frame on a video call.
Williams points to Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses as an example. In September, the data protection authority in Hamburg, Germany, found the glasses’ recording light hard to see outdoors and concluded that a recording indicator alone doesn’t establish informed consent under Europe’s GDPR.
In the U.S., about a dozen states, including Washington state and California, generally require consent from everyone before a private conversation can be recorded.
Whose data is protected: Williams gives Amazon credit for Bee Private Compute, which processes audio in an isolated, encrypted environment built on AWS Nitro and then deletes it. Amazon says only the customer can access the resulting data, not Amazon or Bee.
But that protects the wearer. The words of the people around the wearer still end up in transcripts and summaries they can’t see or remove. Amazon says those speakers aren’t identified by name unless they complete a voice training exercise with the device’s owner.
Williams notes that Amazon has changed comparable privacy commitments before, such as ending the “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” option on some Echo devices last year.
Williams also advises companies to keep the devices out of client meetings and privileged discussions, since the transcripts end up in an employee’s personal account, where the company can’t see or manage them.
A proposed fix: Williams says Bee should leave other people’s voices out of transcripts by default, unless they’ve enrolled their voices and agreed to be recorded. Before the acquisition, Bee indicated plans to record only the voices of people who had verbally consented, according to TechCrunch.
“I know first-hand that Amazon has the engineering talent to ship it,” he wrote.
Amazon’s response: The company didn’t comment directly on the critique but pointed to safeguards built into the devices.
One is an automatic shutoff: the devices turn off if they don’t detect the owner’s voice for 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes, depending on the user’s setting. Amazon says that reinforces that Bee is “a personal AI assistant, not a device designed to passively pick up audio throughout the day.”
The company says it educates customers about responsible use in the Bee app, and that Eclipse will send push notifications encouraging users to let people around them know they’re using Bee and to ask for permission.
Williams, now chief information security officer at Sigma360, worked at AWS from 2023 to 2025 and spent more than 12 years at Microsoft before that, including as a privacy officer for its services business. Read his full article on LinkedIn. Read his full article on LinkedIn.
Klíčovým údajem ve výsledcích Amazonu za třetí čtvrtletí bude meziroční růst tržeb AWS; analytici očekávají růst o 30 až 35 % po 36,7 % ve druhém čtvrtletí.
Amazon's (AMZN -2.31%) stock closed at its all-time high of $284.02 per share on Aug. 3, 2026. Today, it trades at about $254. Let's see why it pulled back about 11% -- and how one number could drive it higher or lower when it posts its third-quarter earnings on Oct. 29.
Image source: Getty Images.
What's the number everyone will be watching?
Amazon is the world's largest e-commerce and cloud infrastructure company. It generates most of its revenue from its retail business, but most of its operating profits come from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world's largest cloud infrastructure platform.
AMZN Amazon$248.88-$5.88 (-2.31%)
NASDAQ · As of 2:01 PM ET 10/16/26
AWS already hosts tens of millions of websites and apps, making it the backbone of the internet. It also hosts Bedrock, a managed service that enables organizations to build their own AI apps, SageMaker, a platform for training custom AI models, and a wide range of customized AI APIs. To support the growth of that AI ecosystem, Amazon is producing its own AI accelerator chips. Anthropic, in which Amazon owns a major stake, is one of AWS' leading customers.
AWS' year-over-year revenue growth has accelerated significantly over the past year, and its 36.7% growth in the second quarter marked its strongest growth in 18 quarters.
Metric
Q2 2025
Q3 2025
Q4 2025
Q1 2026
Q2 2026
AWS Revenue Growth (YOY)
17.5%
20%
24%
28%
36.7%
Data source: Amazon. YOY = Year-over-year.
The AI market's explosive expansion drove AWS' growth, and analysts expect the segment's revenue to grow 30%-35% year over year in the third quarter. If it exceeds that range and accelerates for another consecutive quarter, its stock could soar higher. But if it falls short of that range, its stock could stumble -- since it's allocating most of its projected capex of $220 billion this year toward the expansion of AWS' AI infrastructure.
Will Amazon be revalued as a high-growth AI stock?
From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect Amazon's revenue and EPS to grow at CAGRs of 15% and 25%, respectively. Its stock still looks reasonably valued at 24 times next year's earnings -- but it could command a higher valuation if it's revalued as a high-growth AI infrastructure stock.
That's why investors should keep a close eye on AWS' growth rates in the third quarter, and whether or not Amazon raises its capex guidance again to support that expansion. If it maintains its high growth rates without significantly boosting capex, its stock could reach new highs in the near future.
AWS ve 2. čtvrtletí 2026 zvýšila tržby o 37 % na 42,2 mld. USD, zatímco Amazon kvůli investicím zvýšil výhled kapitálových výdajů na zhruba 220 mld. USD.
Key Takeaways Amazon's AWS AI and chips businesses each surpassed a $25 billion annual revenue run rate in Q2 2026.AWS sales jumped 37% to $42.2 billion, while trailing-12-month operating cash flow rose 33% to $161.4 billion.Amazon raised 2026 capex guidance to $220 billion, while free cash flow swung to a $7.6 billion outflow.
Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) is steadily turning its AI push into monetizable products, which could strengthen cash flow once heavy infrastructure spending moderates. Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) opened a preview of Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI in late September and, on Oct. 1, 2026, previewed the AWS Well-Architected Agent to help customers optimize cost, security and performance. This month, Bedrock also added Claude Haiku 5.5 at roughly 75% lower cost than its predecessor for most tasks. Cheaper inference and production-ready agent tools should widen enterprise adoption and deepen AWS consumption.
Fundamentals firmly back this momentum. In the second quarter of 2026, both AWS’ AI business and Amazon’s chips business, spanning Trainium and Graviton, crossed a $25 billion annual revenue run rate, each growing at triple-digit percentages. Anthropic and OpenAI have made multi-year, multi-gigawatt Trainium commitments, Graviton revenue commitments rose nearly 3x sequentially, and Bedrock customers spent more in the quarter than in all prior quarters combined. Such contracted demand enhances revenue visibility.
For the third quarter of 2026, Amazon expects net sales of $197-$202 billion, up 9-12% year over year, with growth nearly 400 basis points higher excluding the Prime Day timing shift. Operating income is projected at $22.5-$26.5 billion, up from $17.4 billion a year ago.
Second-quarter AWS sales jumped 37% to $42.2 billion, the fastest pace in 18 quarters, and segment operating margin widened to 39.4% from 32.9%. Trailing-12-month operating cash flow rose 33% to $161.4 billion.
However, Amazon raised its 2026 cash capital expenditure outlook to about $220 billion from $200 billion on higher memory costs, and trailing-12-month free cash flow swung to an outflow of $7.6 billion from an inflow of $18.2 billion. Management also expects capacity to fall short of demand through 2027, which could cap near-term AI revenues. Still, with a deep backlog and expanding AWS margins, Amazon appears well-placed to turn its AI spending into stronger cash generation over time.
Microsoft and Alphabet Face Similar AI Cash Flow Trade-OffsMicrosoft (MSFT - Free Report) and Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) are also balancing AI-driven growth against heavy spending. In fourth-quarter fiscal 2026, Microsoft’s Azure revenues grew 43%, while operating cash flow rose 30% to $55.4 billion. However, Microsoft’s capital expenditures of $41 billion reduced free cash flow by 23% to $19.6 billion, and fiscal 2027 capex is expected to be near $175 billion. Alphabet’s Google Cloud revenues jumped 82% to $24.8 billion in the second quarter, with backlog reaching $514 billion. Yet Alphabet’s capex doubled to $44.9 billion, turning quarterly free cash flow negative at $5.9 billion, and Alphabet raised 2026 capex guidance to up to $205 billion.
AMZN’s Share Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesAmazon shares have returned 10.2% in the year-to-date period, outperforming the Zacks Internet – Commerce industry and the Zacks Retail-Wholesale sector’s growth of 1.5% and 0.85, respectively.
AMZN’s Year-to-date Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, AMZN stock appears overvalued, trading at a forward 12-month price/earnings ratio of 23X, higher than the industry’s 20.34X. Amazon has a Value Score of D.
AMZN’s Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AMZN’s 2026 earnings is pegged at $13.02 per share, indicating an 81.59% increase from the figure reported in the year-ago quarter.
Amazon currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Amazon hrozí, že pokud bude v New Yorku schválen zákon na ochranu doručovatelů (Delivery Protection Act), uzavře 15 skladů a zruší až 7 000 pracovních míst.
Amazon has vowed to close more than a dozen warehouses and shed thousands of workers across New York City over a labor bill being pushed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — and the e-commerce giant is likely to make good on the threat if the controversial legislation is enacted, industry experts told The Post.
The Delivery Protection Act would force Amazon to directly hire upwards of 5,000 delivery workers citywide who are currently employed by third-party contractors. Proponents say the legislation will increase workers’ pay and improve safety conditions at Amazon and other delivery firms including FedEx and DoorDash.
But Amazon doesn’t directly employ delivery workers anywhere else in the country — and has a history of fiercely resisting efforts to change its policies in the US and abroad. The result, according to experts, could be not only that those 5,000 delivery jobs move out of the city, but also that Amazon shutters its 15 last-mile warehouses in the Big Apple and fires the additional 2,000 workers that staff them.
This warehouse is one of seven that Amazon closed in Quebec last year. Bloomberg via Getty Images Early last year, Amazon closed seven warehouses in Quebec near Montreal amid a labor fight involving one of its last-mile facilities. The union, Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), had organized the 300 workers at a warehouse in the town of Laval.
By March 2025, some 1,900 Canadians across seven warehouses and 2,800 delivery contractors for those facilities had lost their jobs.
“Amazon will retaliate, because it has to send a firm message to the rest of the country that ‘If you mess with us, this is what will happen,’” said Marc Wulfraat, president and founder of Montreal-based logistics consulting firm, MWPVL International.
“When you look at Amazon’s global operations, they close buildings left, right and center when there is union activity.”
According to real estate listings, the Montreal facilities are now vacant, with Amazon still paying rent on more than 1.6 million square feet of space that it spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build, according to Wulfraat. At least two facilities are being offered as subleases.
There are 40 delivery companies in the Big Apple that worry Amazon will move its facilities outside the city. Helayne Seidman for the NY Post The Delivery Protection Act — first introduced a year ago by Queens Council Member Tiffany Cabán and reintroduced in 2026 — has strong support in the City Council with some 34 co-signers. But several, including Speaker Julie Menin, are “uncomfortable” with potential job losses, a source close to negotiations said.
“This bill will have to pass in some form,” particularly since the mayor supports it, the source told The Post, adding that the final result may make “both sides unhappy.”
Compromises that have been discussed include allowing independent contractors to continue to perform deliveries while requiring Amazon to provide more safety guarantees for workers, the source said. No vote has been scheduled.
Industry experts say parallels between Quebec and New York can’t be ignored, even as Amazon employs directly or indirectly more than 12,000 hourly workers in New York — more than twice as many as it did in Quebec.
Those include the 2,000 workers that staff last-mile warehouses and 5,000 more to deliver the goods. The Delivery Protection Act wouldn’t affect 5,500 workers at Amazon’s giant JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island, who voted to unionize in 2022 — a first at an Amazon US facility — but who still lack a collective bargaining agreement.
Downtown Montreal’s Amazon deliveries are serviced by an independent logistics provider, Intelcom. AFP via Getty Images While Amazon employs unionized workers in Europe, it has made headlines since the pandemic battling unions in the US. It’s now locked in litigation over allegedly hardball tactics it has used to fight labor organization in Bessemer, Ala., and Staten Island.
In April, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Amazon to the bargaining table with the Teamsters in Staten Island, but Amazon has filed lawsuits questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB.
“Amazon will say or do whatever it takes to deny workers stronger rights and wages and abdicate its responsibilities for its own employees,” the Teamsters said in a statement.
The risks posed by the Delivery Protection Act are not lost on the 40 independent companies that employ the 5,000 delivery workers in New York City.
“Look at what happened in Quebec,” Kris Basmagy, owner of DashWave Delivery, which handles Amazon’s deliveries on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, told The Post. “There was pressure on Amazon’s model, and it pulled out.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently threw his support behind the Delivery Protection Act. Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock Basmagy, who employs 150 delivery workers, added that nothing is stopping Amazon from replacing its New York City facilities with some of the “warehouses being built along the New Jersey Turnpike.”
Amazon is still tied up in litigation in Quebec, where it denies that it closed its warehouses because of CSN’s organizing activity. The union filed a complaint with Quebec’s labor tribunal, but even if it proves that Amazon violated labor laws, Amazon faces at most a fine and potential consumer backlash, according to a CBC News report.
A class action lawsuit filed by an Amazon Prime customer in Quebec in February 2025 claims that the warehouse closures slowed Amazon’s delivery times beyond the one- and two-day guarantee for Prime service — with some deliveries instead taking as long as four to six days.
In May, a Quebec court ruled that the case can proceed. Still, plaintiffs who are seeking refunds admit the disruption only lasted about two months, according to the complaint. Amazon says service hasn’t suffered since a large Canadian logistics company, IntelCom, took over its Quebec deliveries.
“Then they got their act together and stopped the delays,” said Saro Turner, a partner in the law firm Slater Vecchio, which filed the suit.
Speaker of the New York City Council Julie Menin is uncomfortable with the prospect of potential job losses associated with the delivery bill. Brigitte Stelzer for NY Post In New York, Amazon maintains that delivery times and prices for customers would increase if it closed its warehouses. New York is “fundamentally different” from Quebec, where Amazon operated “far fewer sites,” according to Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly.
The company bankrolled a study by AKFR showing that the Delivery Protection Act would cost New Yorkers an extra $664 extra a year — or about $5.20 per package. That figure covers deliveries made by other companies, including FedEx and Doordash.
“New York City is one of the largest and most complex delivery regions in the country,” Kelly said in a statement. “It’s best served by a network of local small businesses deeply embedded in their communities and leveraging our operations infrastructure.”
Amazon deliveries in New York would slow permanently if it closed its last-mile facilities in the city, according to a source with knowledge of Amazon’s operations. Same-day deliveries and those that occur within hours of placing an order would take the biggest hit. The number of items that fall under the Prime promise would also shrink, this source said.
“There are a lot of same-day and same-morning deliveries in the city” that could arrive the next day, the source said.
Some 5,000 delivery jobs are at risk if Amazon is forced to hire its own delivery employees. Christopher Sadowski Amazon’s last-mile facilities in Brooklyn and Queens include one in Red Hook at 270 Richards St. and another in Maspeth at 55-15 Grand Ave. Last-mile warehouses in Manhattan include an 87,000-square-foot facility at 706 11th Ave., according to a report on safety issues from New York City Comptroller Mark Levine.
“Amazon wouldn’t blink about shutting down the 15 facilities in New York City if it felt that the legislation was a threat to its business model,” said Brittain Ladd, a logistics and retail consultant and former Amazon executive. “This is about a model that could be copied in other cities.”
The delivery companies say they are the collateral damage in this struggle.
“There is a laser focus on punishing Amazon no matter what the repercussions might be, what it does to us as business owners, fathers and husbands,” Basmagy said. “It’s as if we no longer exist.”
WGA Transit, which has actively recruited formerly incarcerated and homeless workers to deliver Amazon packages in Harlem, will be forced out of business if the Delivery Protection Act is enacted in its current form, owner Joe Artus told The Post.
“I have a 21-month-old daughter,” Artus told The Post. “If this thing passes, there is no way for my company to exist or to keep my 189 employees.”
Amazon sází na AI zařízení Bee vnímající okolní prostředí, která pasivně zachycují zvuk, pořizují poznámky a mají postupně omezit potřebu používat aplikace.
Amazon is placing its bets on ambient computing, not apps, as the future of personal AI.
Alongside the launch of its new AI wearables from Bee, Panos Panay, who serves as Amazon’s SVP of Devices, Alexa & Leo, took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt on Thursday to talk in more depth about where he sees personal computing headed.
“A lot of times, what you’re doing right now — what we all do right now — is we have to remember what we’re asking our tool to do for us,” Panay began, explaining that this is how we engage with our modern smartphones. “It’s like point, shoot, return,” Panay continued. “I think where we’re headed is a world [that] starts with ambient devices.”
By “ambient devices,” he means those that work quietly in the background, using sensors, and AI to help you figure out what needs to be done, instead of the other way around, where you’re telling the device what you need to do.
“As it works in the background, you’re able to stay more present. You’re able to get more done. You’re about to spend more time with people… you’re not afraid if you miss something. It’s incredibly powerful,” Panay said.
Amazon’s biggest entry into this space is the set of new Bee devices it introduced on Thursday, which include a band you can wear on your wrist or detach to wear as a pendant, as well as a new credit-card-sized device that attaches magnetically to the back of your smartphone.
These gadgets passively record audio and take notes about your day, finding the to-dos, reminders, and insights you may later need to refer back to. To balance the need to be useful with user privacy, Bee’s devices don’t actually store the raw audio from your conversations; they process the audio in real time and then delete it when done. Transcripts of conversations are encrypted using keys that your device creates and controls. That means no one else, including Amazon employees, can access those files unless you intentionally share them.
Panay said that privacy was a key consideration for how these new ambient devices should work.
“You have to give customers that control,” he said. “Every product is different, but for Bee specifically, as an example in the ambient space like that, you have to design with privacy in mind. And that’s what we do. That’s critical.”
The executive, who came to Amazon after 19 years at Microsoft where he oversaw the development of Surface devices, has spent a lot of his life thinking about how personal computing will evolve. With Bee — and ambient computing more generally — Panay also envisioned a future where the idea of interacting with apps becomes less important, as more tasks are handled via AI.
“Do I think we have a future where there’s a bit of a balance — a whole generation that doesn’t say ‘give me the app’ for that, but says it should just understand what I need? Yeah, I do. I think that transformation is coming. I think that is the next generation,” he said.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the smartphone itself won’t continue to be an important personal computing device (as much as Amazon would like it to be an Alexa tablet or Echo smart speaker), Panay pointed out. Rather, he believes a new crop of devices will emerge that use sensors to understand users better, and to bring intelligence to the world around you.
“I’m not a proponent that says one form factor is going to replace another. I don’t think that’s the case,” he clarified. “I think there’s an intelligence layer that connects it all… and it has to be useful.”
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Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.
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Professional Advisory Services ve třetím čtvrtletí snížila svůj podíl v Amazon.com o 6,2 % prodejem 9 034 akcií; nadále drží 135 930 akcií v hodnotě 33,87 milionu USD.
Professional Advisory Services Inc. lowered its position in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 6.2% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 135,930 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after selling 9,034 shares during the period. Amazon.com makes up approximately 4.0% of Professional Advisory Services Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 6th largest position. Professional Advisory Services Inc.’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $33,867,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Auto Owners Insurance Co raised its stake in shares of Amazon.com by 27,376.7% in the fourth quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 98,448,885 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $2,272,397,000 after purchasing an additional 98,090,585 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE purchased a new stake in shares of Amazon.com during the second quarter valued at $22,218,775,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new stake in shares of Amazon.com during the second quarter valued at $16,341,405,000. Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new stake in shares of Amazon.com during the second quarter valued at $12,831,376,000. Finally, Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Amazon.com during the second quarter valued at $6,631,466,000. 72.20% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Amazon.com Stock Down 1.7% Amazon.com stock opened at $254.08 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $2.74 trillion, a PE ratio of 20.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.00 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, Inc. has a one year low of $196.00 and a one year high of $287.20. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $257.59 and a 200 day moving average of $251.19.
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 for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $3.93. The company had revenue of $200.61 billion for 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%. Amazon.com’s revenue was up 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.68 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.03 EPS for the current year. Insider Buying and Selling at Amazon.com In other news, CEO Matthew Garman sold 14,541 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.06, for a total value of $3,766,991.46. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 17,794 shares in the company, valued at $4,609,713.64. This represents a 44.97% 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, VP Shelley Reynolds sold 2,343 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $259.01, for a total transaction of $606,860.43. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 119,780 shares in the company, valued at approximately $31,024,217.80. The trade was a 1.92% decrease in their position. 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 quarter, insiders sold 71,589 shares of company stock worth $18,580,515. 8.90% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several research firms recently commented on AMZN. Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $320.00 price objective (up from $315.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. Zacks Research cut shares of Amazon.com from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, September 14th. Citigroup restated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Friday, August 14th. Telsey Advisory Group set a $335.00 price target on shares of Amazon.com and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Finally, DA Davidson reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $250.00 price target on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Fifty-six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $322.53.
Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Amazon.com
Key Stories Impacting Amazon.com Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:
Positive Sentiment: AWS remains the key bullish catalyst. Reports highlight a $496 billion AWS backlog, cloud margins near 39%, and continued demand for AI infrastructure. Amazon also said its custom-chip and AI businesses each surpassed $25 billion, supporting the case that Trainium and Inferentia could eventually reduce reliance on Nvidia GPUs. AWS Backlog and Cloud Margins Positive Sentiment: Amazon is expanding its AI ecosystem. The company is reportedly considering a roughly $7 billion acquisition of Decart, whose software helps run AI workloads across Nvidia and Amazon chips. The deal could accelerate Trainium adoption and improve AWS’s competitive position. Amazon Decart AI Deal Positive Sentiment: Analyst fundamentals remain supportive. Erste Group raised its FY2027 EPS estimate to $10.71 from $10.54, while Amazon’s Prime Video sports strategy could increase engagement, retention and advertising opportunities. Amazon Prime Video Sports Strategy Neutral Sentiment: Investor positioning may amplify volatility. Amazon was reportedly the most widely owned hedge-fund stock in September, creating potential support but also increasing the risk of crowded-trade selling if earnings or AWS growth disappoints. Amazon Hedge Fund Ownership Negative Sentiment: AI investment is pressuring cash flow. Amazon’s planned spending of roughly $200 billion to $220 billion raises concerns about capital intensity, returns on invested capital and near-term free cash flow, even as operating cash flow improves. Amazon AI Spending Negative Sentiment: Regulatory and execution risks increased. Lawmakers asked the FAA to conduct a site-specific environmental review of Amazon’s proposed Massachusetts drone hub, citing noise, privacy, safety and environmental concerns. Amazon also recalled more than 112,000 bottles of acetaminophen sold through its platform. FAA Review of Amazon Drone Hub Negative Sentiment: New hardware faces market skepticism. Amazon’s $499.99-plus Alexa Tablet 12 Pro moves the company into a higher-priced segment against Apple’s iPad, while Apple’s new smart-home products intensify competition. Amazon Alexa Tablet Launch About Amazon.com (Free Report)
Amazon.com, Inc is a global technology and commerce company that operates online marketplaces, physical stores, and a broad portfolio of digital and cloud-based services. The company offers consumer products across categories such as electronics, household goods, apparel, groceries, and entertainment, while also providing third-party sellers with tools for listing, selling, and fulfilling orders.
Amazon’s major businesses include Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides cloud computing, storage, database, analytics, and artificial intelligence services; Prime, a membership program that includes shipping, streaming, and other benefits; and digital entertainment services such as Prime Video, Amazon Music, Kindle, and Audible.
Featured Stories Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com Tesla Wants to Make Its Own Chips—What Could Go Wrong? IREN Limited’s AI Pivot Gains Traction—But Can Its Data Centers Deliver? PBF Energy’s Stunning Rally Faces a Critical Test Citi Stock Falls Despite Earnings Beat: What Investors Need to Know 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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Bee, výrobce nositelné elektroniky s AI vlastněný společností Amazon, uvedl zařízení Frontier za 74,99 USD a Eclipse za 99,99 USD pro nahrávání a shrnování konverzací.
Amazon’s personal AI wearable maker, Bee, is announcing its first new products since being acquired by the retail giant last year. The tech company on Thursday introduced the Bee Frontier, the next generation of its device that can be worn on the wrist or pinned to clothes, along with Bee Eclipse, a credit-card-sized device that magnetically attaches to the back of your smartphone.
The latter puts Bee into more direct competition with AI devices like the Plaud Note or Pocket, but at a lower price point — the Bee Frontier is $74.99, compared with $159 for the Plaud Note (or $189 for the Note Pro), or $129 for the Pocket AI device.
The Bee Frontier will come in Onyx, Lavender, and Sage, while the $99.99 Bee Eclipse will be offered in Silver, Midnight, Honey, and Blush.
Like the original Bee, the idea with the new devices is to leverage AI to take notes from your everyday conversations, allowing you to remember the important things that were said, and then turn those into actionable to-dos, summaries, and insights.
For instance, if you discussed making plans with friends, the Bee would remember the date and time you agreed on, then create a calendar invite. You could also use the Bee to take lecture notes in class, or to jot down the care plan you discussed with a doctor, among other things.
All Bee devices can create conversation summaries and recaps for free, and offer 14 days of memory. With an $11.99 per month Bee Pro subscription, users receive unlimited conversation summaries and integrations with Amazon.com, Alexa+, and third-party applications. Pro users also get suggested to-dos, daily memories, a personal chat assistant, and conversation templates.
To make all this possible, Bee devices use a private computing security architecture, which doesn’t store the raw audio from your conversations. Instead, audio is processed in real time and then deleted. Transcripts of the conversation are encrypted using keys that your device creates and controls, which means no one else, including Amazon employees, can access those files unless you manually and intentionally share them.
In addition, you can opt to connect the Bee to Alexa, allowing your Echo device to use its ability to identify your voice, a feature called Voice ID, to recognize when you’re speaking. It can then record your conversations to provide Bee’s insights. (This aspect of Bee is optional, and Amazon notes you can delete transcripts and summaries at any time.)
With its new connections to Amazon.com and Alexa, Bee users can make purchases from Amazon or ask Alexa for their Bee insights, summaries, or to-dos hands-free.
Bee also works with your existing productivity software, like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook, so it can draft emails, set up meetings, surface action items, and more.
Plus, you can upload photos to Bee or connect it with Apple’s HealthKit to add a picture of your overall wellness to be integrated into your provided insights.
The Bee Frontier and Bee Eclipse both have just one button that turns the device off and on, and include an indicator light when it’s summarizing a conversation. The Frontier also offers IP67 water resistance, up to seven days of battery life, USB-C charging, and dual microphones with advanced noise filtering.
All Bee devices come with a companion mobile app, which has also been newly redesigned, plus a new desktop app.
The Bee Frontier is available now on Amazon, and the Eclipse will be available soon thereafter.
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Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.
You can contact or verify outreach from Sarah by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at sarahperez.01 on Signal.
Demokratičtí zákonodárci vyzvali FAA k novému posouzení dopadů plánovaného dronového centra Amazon Prime Air ve Westborough na životní prostředí a obyvatele.
A group of Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday urged the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct a new environmental review before allowing an Amazon Prime Air drone delivery hub to be located about 30 miles (48.28 km) west of Boston.
Massachusetts Democratic US Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Representatives Jim McGovern and Lori Trahan wrote to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford seeking a new review after communities raised concerns about the planned Westborough hub and its impact on the environment and residents’ quality of life, including noise pollution, health and safety, and privacy.
The FAA said it would respond directly to the lawmakers. Amazon did not immediately comment.
Here are more details:
On September 28, a group of 15 states and a Texas county on Monday sued the FAA over the agency's environmental review of planned commercial drone package delivery rules.
The agency in July issued a broad environmental review that allows qualifying drone operators to launch fleets without a site-specific environmental analysis.
The states — including New York, California, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Michigan — and Harris County, Texas, said the FAA violated the law by failing to adequately analyze the potential environmental impacts of expanded drone package delivery operations.
Drone delivery operations are already happening in states including California, Texas, Arkansas, Florida and Utah under the waiver process.
The FAA said last year that eliminating the need for waivers "will significantly expand the use-case for drone technologies in areas like: manufacturing, farming, energy production, filmmaking, and the movement of products including lifesaving medications."
The FAA environmental review included reviewing the noise impacts of 1,150 average drone deliveries from a single hub. Drones would depart a hub and travel en route at an altitude of less than 400 feet (121 meters).
Cooper Financial Group raised its position in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 10.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 125,710 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after buying an additional 11,705 shares during the quarter. Amazon.com comprises approximately 2.5% of Cooper Financial Group’s portfolio, making the stock its 8th biggest position. Cooper Financial Group’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $31,321,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Auto Owners Insurance Co boosted its stake in Amazon.com by 27,376.7% during the fourth quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 98,448,885 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $2,272,397,000 after acquiring an additional 98,090,585 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new stake in shares of Amazon.com in the 2nd quarter worth $22,218,775,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in Amazon.com in the 2nd quarter worth about $16,341,405,000. Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new position in shares of Amazon.com during the second quarter valued at approximately $12,831,376,000. Finally, Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. purchased a new stake in Amazon.com during the second quarter valued at $6,631,466,000. Institutional investors own 72.20% of the company’s stock.
Amazon.com Stock Down 0.4% AMZN stock opened at $258.58 on Wednesday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $257.96 and its 200-day simple moving average is $250.86. The company has a market capitalization of $2.79 trillion, a P/E ratio of 20.80, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.01 and a beta of 1.45. 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, Inc. has a 12 month low of $196.00 and a 12 month high of $287.20.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly 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 18.00% and a net margin of 17.44%. The company 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 company posted $1.68 earnings per share. Amazon.com’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 8.03 earnings per share for the current year. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth AMZN has been the topic of several recent research reports. Bank of America raised their price objective on Amazon.com from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Wolfe Research reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $315.00 price objective on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. UBS Group set a $200.00 target price on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Thursday, September 17th. Tigress Financial reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $385.00 target price (up from $315.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Tuesday, October 6th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $325.00 target price (up from $315.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Fifty-six research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $322.53.
Read Our Latest Analysis on AMZN
Insider Transactions at Amazon.com In related news, CEO Andrew R. Jassy sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $259.01, for a total transaction of $5,180,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,235,766 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $579,085,751.66. This represents a 0.89% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Douglas J. Herrington sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $251.50, for a total value of $251,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 474,681 shares in the company, valued at approximately $119,382,271.50. The trade was a 0.21% 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. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 71,589 shares of company stock valued at $18,580,515. 8.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.
More Amazon.com News Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:
Positive Sentiment: Amazon is reportedly in advanced discussions to acquire AI startup Decart for approximately $7 billion. Decart’s software helps developers switch workloads among different AI chips, potentially strengthening AWS, Amazon’s custom-chip strategy and its broader AI infrastructure offering. The deal remains unfinalized, but investors view it as a way to acquire specialized technology and talent. Amazon weighs Decart deal Positive Sentiment: A bullish fundamental case remains intact: AWS growth is reportedly above 35%, AI-related demand is supporting a cloud backlog approaching $500 billion, and operating cash flow has risen 33% to $161.4 billion. Analysts at Erste Group also raised their fiscal 2027 EPS forecast to $10.71 from $10.54. Amazon free cash flow outlook Neutral Sentiment: Investors are awaiting Q3 results later this month for evidence that AWS demand, advertising and revenue growth can offset the near-term impact of AI infrastructure spending. Analysts generally remain positive, although Cantor Fitzgerald recently reduced its price target to $310 from $320 while retaining an Overweight rating. Amazon Q3 earnings preview Negative Sentiment: Amazon’s planned capital spending could exceed $220 billion this year. Depreciation, energy costs and rapidly aging AI hardware are pressuring free cash flow, raising concerns that AWS growth and its large backlog may take time to produce adequate returns. The potential Decart purchase also adds to concerns about valuation and capital discipline. Negative Sentiment: The UK government is expected to target online marketplaces, including Amazon, in a tax crackdown. New fees or compliance requirements could increase costs for Amazon and third-party sellers. UK online marketplace tax crackdown Negative Sentiment: Apple’s new HomeView smart display, cameras, doorbell and smart lock expand competition with Amazon’s Echo and Ring businesses, potentially increasing pressure on Amazon’s consumer-device margins and market share. Apple challenges Amazon in smart home About Amazon.com (Free Report)
Amazon.com, Inc is a global technology and commerce company that operates online marketplaces, physical stores, and a broad portfolio of digital and cloud-based services. The company offers consumer products across categories such as electronics, household goods, apparel, groceries, and entertainment, while also providing third-party sellers with tools for listing, selling, and fulfilling orders.
Amazon’s major businesses include Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides cloud computing, storage, database, analytics, and artificial intelligence services; Prime, a membership program that includes shipping, streaming, and other benefits; and digital entertainment services such as Prime Video, Amazon Music, Kindle, and Audible.
See Also Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com A Chinese Rival Just Spooked Memory Stocks—How Worried Should Micron Investors Be? Could T-Mobile’s Satellite Competition Fears Create a Buying Opportunity? Surgical Precision, Sustainable Returns: Johnson & Johnson Secures Its Cash Flow Runway Tesla’s Robotaxi Lands in Paris—But Europe’s Real Fight Is Over Cheap EVs 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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HWG Holdings LP lessened its holdings in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 28.0% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 63,098 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after selling 24,494 shares during the period. Amazon.com accounts for approximately 3.6% of HWG Holdings LP’s holdings, making the stock its 8th biggest position. HWG Holdings LP’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $15,721,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
A number of other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of AMZN. Applied Capital LLC FL lifted its position in shares of Amazon.com by 0.5% in the third quarter. Applied Capital LLC FL now owns 8,334 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $2,076,000 after buying an additional 43 shares in the last quarter. Dominguez Wealth Management Solutions Inc. grew its holdings in Amazon.com by 6.2% during the 3rd quarter. Dominguez Wealth Management Solutions Inc. now owns 3,091 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $770,000 after buying an additional 181 shares in the last quarter. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC grew its holdings in Amazon.com by 20.1% during the 3rd quarter. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 3,062 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $763,000 after buying an additional 513 shares in the last quarter. Cooper Financial Group grew its holdings in Amazon.com by 10.3% during the 3rd quarter. Cooper Financial Group now owns 125,710 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $31,321,000 after buying an additional 11,705 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Canandaigua National Trust Co of Florida bought a new stake in Amazon.com in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $3,946,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 72.20% of the company’s stock.
Amazon.com Price Performance NASDAQ:AMZN opened at $258.58 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.79 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.80, a PEG ratio of 2.01 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 business has a 50 day simple moving average of $257.96 and a 200-day simple moving average of $250.86. 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 released its earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $200.61 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $197.03 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.68 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 19.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.03 EPS for the current year. Insider Buying and Selling In other news, CEO Matthew Garman sold 14,541 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.06, for a total value of $3,766,991.46. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 17,794 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,609,713.64. This represents a 44.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, VP Shelley Reynolds sold 2,343 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $259.01, for a total transaction of $606,860.43. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president owned 119,780 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,024,217.80. This trade represents a 1.92% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 71,589 shares of company stock valued at $18,580,515 over the last 90 days. 8.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.
Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several analysts have recently issued reports on AMZN shares. KeyCorp upped their price objective on Amazon.com from $335.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of Amazon.com from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $335.00 price target (up from $330.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Tigress Financial restated a “buy” rating and issued a $385.00 price target (up from $315.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Tuesday, October 6th. Finally, TD Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $350.00 price target on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Monday, October 5th. Fifty-six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $322.53.
View Our Latest Stock Report on AMZN
More Amazon.com News Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:
Positive Sentiment: Amazon is reportedly in advanced discussions to acquire AI startup Decart for approximately $7 billion. Decart’s software helps developers switch workloads among different AI chips, potentially strengthening AWS, Amazon’s custom-chip strategy and its broader AI infrastructure offering. The deal remains unfinalized, but investors view it as a way to acquire specialized technology and talent. Amazon weighs Decart deal Positive Sentiment: A bullish fundamental case remains intact: AWS growth is reportedly above 35%, AI-related demand is supporting a cloud backlog approaching $500 billion, and operating cash flow has risen 33% to $161.4 billion. Analysts at Erste Group also raised their fiscal 2027 EPS forecast to $10.71 from $10.54. Amazon free cash flow outlook Neutral Sentiment: Investors are awaiting Q3 results later this month for evidence that AWS demand, advertising and revenue growth can offset the near-term impact of AI infrastructure spending. Analysts generally remain positive, although Cantor Fitzgerald recently reduced its price target to $310 from $320 while retaining an Overweight rating. Amazon Q3 earnings preview Negative Sentiment: Amazon’s planned capital spending could exceed $220 billion this year. Depreciation, energy costs and rapidly aging AI hardware are pressuring free cash flow, raising concerns that AWS growth and its large backlog may take time to produce adequate returns. The potential Decart purchase also adds to concerns about valuation and capital discipline. Negative Sentiment: The UK government is expected to target online marketplaces, including Amazon, in a tax crackdown. New fees or compliance requirements could increase costs for Amazon and third-party sellers. UK online marketplace tax crackdown Negative Sentiment: Apple’s new HomeView smart display, cameras, doorbell and smart lock expand competition with Amazon’s Echo and Ring businesses, potentially increasing pressure on Amazon’s consumer-device margins and market share. Apple challenges Amazon in smart home Amazon.com Company Profile (Free Report)
Amazon.com, Inc is a global technology and commerce company that operates online marketplaces, physical stores, and a broad portfolio of digital and cloud-based services. The company offers consumer products across categories such as electronics, household goods, apparel, groceries, and entertainment, while also providing third-party sellers with tools for listing, selling, and fulfilling orders.
Amazon’s major businesses include Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides cloud computing, storage, database, analytics, and artificial intelligence services; Prime, a membership program that includes shipping, streaming, and other benefits; and digital entertainment services such as Prime Video, Amazon Music, Kindle, and Audible.
See Also Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com A Chinese Rival Just Spooked Memory Stocks—How Worried Should Micron Investors Be? Could T-Mobile’s Satellite Competition Fears Create a Buying Opportunity? Surgical Precision, Sustainable Returns: Johnson & Johnson Secures Its Cash Flow Runway Tesla’s Robotaxi Lands in Paris—But Europe’s Real Fight Is Over Cheap EVs 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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Whalen Wealth Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN – Free Report) by 7.4% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 29,165 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after buying an additional 2,003 shares during the quarter. Amazon.com comprises about 3.2% of Whalen Wealth Management Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 3rd biggest holding. Whalen Wealth Management Inc.’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $7,266,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of AMZN. Silvant Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Amazon.com in the 2nd quarter valued at $60,065,000. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio acquired a new stake in shares of Amazon.com in the 2nd quarter worth $909,868,000. Northstar Financial Companies Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Amazon.com in the 2nd quarter worth $3,376,000. Gryphon Financial Partners LLC raised 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 acquiring an additional 5,125 shares during the period. Finally, First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. raised its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 1.7% during the 1st quarter. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. now owns 303,862 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $63,285,000 after acquiring an additional 5,104 shares during the period. 72.20% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.
Key Stories Impacting Amazon.com Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:
Positive Sentiment: Amazon is reportedly in advanced discussions to acquire AI startup Decart for approximately $7 billion. Decart’s software helps developers switch workloads among different AI chips, potentially strengthening AWS, Amazon’s custom-chip strategy and its broader AI infrastructure offering. The deal remains unfinalized, but investors view it as a way to acquire specialized technology and talent. Amazon weighs Decart deal Positive Sentiment: A bullish fundamental case remains intact: AWS growth is reportedly above 35%, AI-related demand is supporting a cloud backlog approaching $500 billion, and operating cash flow has risen 33% to $161.4 billion. Analysts at Erste Group also raised their fiscal 2027 EPS forecast to $10.71 from $10.54. Amazon free cash flow outlook Neutral Sentiment: Investors are awaiting Q3 results later this month for evidence that AWS demand, advertising and revenue growth can offset the near-term impact of AI infrastructure spending. Analysts generally remain positive, although Cantor Fitzgerald recently reduced its price target to $310 from $320 while retaining an Overweight rating. Amazon Q3 earnings preview Negative Sentiment: Amazon’s planned capital spending could exceed $220 billion this year. Depreciation, energy costs and rapidly aging AI hardware are pressuring free cash flow, raising concerns that AWS growth and its large backlog may take time to produce adequate returns. The potential Decart purchase also adds to concerns about valuation and capital discipline. Negative Sentiment: The UK government is expected to target online marketplaces, including Amazon, in a tax crackdown. New fees or compliance requirements could increase costs for Amazon and third-party sellers. UK online marketplace tax crackdown Negative Sentiment: Apple’s new HomeView smart display, cameras, doorbell and smart lock expand competition with Amazon’s Echo and Ring businesses, potentially increasing pressure on Amazon’s consumer-device margins and market share. Apple challenges Amazon in smart home Amazon.com Price Performance NASDAQ:AMZN opened at $258.58 on Wednesday. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 52 week low of $196.00 and a 52 week high of $287.20. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $257.96 and its two-hundred day moving average is $250.86. The company has a market capitalization of $2.79 trillion, a P/E ratio of 20.80, a P/E/G ratio of 2.01 and a beta of 1.45. 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 (NASDAQ:AMZN – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $3.93. The business had revenue of $200.61 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $197.03 billion. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 18.00% and a net margin of 17.44%. The company’s revenue was up 19.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.68 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.03 EPS for the current year.
Insider Transactions at Amazon.com In other Amazon.com news, CEO Douglas Herrington sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $251.50, for a total value of $251,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 474,681 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $119,382,271.50. This represents a 0.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Matthew S. Garman sold 14,541 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.06, for a total transaction of $3,766,991.46. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 17,794 shares in the company, valued at $4,609,713.64. The trade was a 44.97% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 71,589 shares of company stock worth $18,580,515 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 8.90% of the company’s stock.
Wall Street Analyst Weigh In AMZN has been the topic of several recent research reports. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their price target on shares of Amazon.com from $320.00 to $310.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. Zacks Research lowered shares of Amazon.com from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, September 14th. Sanford C. Bernstein restated an “outperform” rating and set a $320.00 price objective (up from $315.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Benchmark lifted their target price on shares of Amazon.com from $370.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Finally, Pivotal Research reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $333.00 target price (up from $320.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Fifty-six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $322.53.
View Our Latest Report on Amazon.com
About Amazon.com (Free Report)
Amazon.com, Inc is a global technology and commerce company that operates online marketplaces, physical stores, and a broad portfolio of digital and cloud-based services. The company offers consumer products across categories such as electronics, household goods, apparel, groceries, and entertainment, while also providing third-party sellers with tools for listing, selling, and fulfilling orders.
Amazon’s major businesses include Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides cloud computing, storage, database, analytics, and artificial intelligence services; Prime, a membership program that includes shipping, streaming, and other benefits; and digital entertainment services such as Prime Video, Amazon Music, Kindle, and Audible.
Featured Articles Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com A Chinese Rival Just Spooked Memory Stocks—How Worried Should Micron Investors Be? Could T-Mobile’s Satellite Competition Fears Create a Buying Opportunity? Surgical Precision, Sustainable Returns: Johnson & Johnson Secures Its Cash Flow Runway Tesla’s Robotaxi Lands in Paris—But Europe’s Real Fight Is Over Cheap EVs
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Amazon has rewarded patient investors for a decade, but the next five years look nothing like the last, with a $200 billion spending bet that could either cement its dominance or drag returns into bear territory.
Over the past decade, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) has paid back patient shareholders. The split-adjusted stock rose 528.33% over 10 years, from $41.55 to $261.07 in midday trading. That means a $1,000 stake would be worth about $6,283.30 today.
The question now is what a fresh $1,000 investment could become by 2031. With AWS growing at its fastest pace in years, the next five years deserve a close look.
Your $1,000 Could Double by 2031 in the Base Case
Under the expected scenario, a $1,000 investment in Amazon could be worth about $2,021.20 by 2031, a total return of 102.12%. That projection rests on a five-year per-share target of $530.41, measured from a starting price of $262.43. It works out to an annualized return of 15.11%.
Bull, Base and Bear: Where Your Stake Could Land by 2031
Scenario
Target Share Price
Total Return
Value of $1,000
Bull
$643.04
145.03%
$2,450.30
Base
$530.41
102.12%
$2,021.20
Bear
$353.41
34.67%
$1,346.70
The one-year outlook (a 2027 target) runs from a bear case of $286.92 (9.33%, or $1,093.30) to a bull case of $385.91 (47.05%, or $1,470.50). The base target is $334.28, which would turn $1,000 into $1,273.80. The model’s confidence reading is 0.7 on a 0 to 1 scale. That is down from 0.9 in readings through mid-September.
Wall Street’s view tracks closely with the expected outlook. The consensus analyst target is $331.53, with 16 Strong Buy ratings, 43 Buy ratings, 2 Holds and no Sells.
Treat this as a projection, not investment advice.
Three Engines Behind the Upside
AWS Is Accelerating Again
AWS revenue reached $42.2 billion in Q2, up 36.7% year over year. Growth has now sped up for five straight quarters, and management called it the fastest pace in 18 quarters. Backlog hit $496 billion, and the annualized run rate stands at $169 billion. Management also said most of its 2027 capacity is already reserved.
Custom Chips and AI Workloads
The AI business and the chips business each passed run rates of more than $25 billion, and both are growing at triple-digit rates. Anthropic and OpenAI have made multi-year, multi-gigawatt commitments to Trainium. Management also said there is “a real chance” Amazon will sell Trainium chips to third-party data centers in the future.
Ads and Profit Leverage
Advertising revenue rose 26% to $19.8 billion. Total operating income climbed 43% to $27.5 billion. For Q3, Amazon guided to operating income of $22.5B to $26.5B, compared with $17.4B a year earlier. The stock trades at a trailing P/E of about 21 and a forward P/E near 24.
What Could Derail These Projections
Spending is the biggest swing factor. Amazon plans about $200B of 2026 capex for AI infrastructure, custom chips and Amazon Leo satellites. Free cash flow already fell to $11.19B in 2025, down 66%.
Management was direct about it: “we’ll spend a lot of capex and encounter free cash flow headwinds until these data centers come online to be monetized.” If AI demand slows down before those data centers pay off, returns could fall short.
All that capex has to land somewhere, and the suppliers building out the power, cooling, and networking behind these data centers are often the quieter winners (we featured seven of them in research you can download here).
Headline earnings also need a second look. Q2 GAAP EPS of $5.75 included $53.4 billion of non-operating gains, mostly from the Anthropic investment. Comparable EPS was closer to $1.88. Valuation models built on inflated earnings can overstate upside.
Other risks include tariffs, an FX drag of about 80 basis points in Q3 guidance, memory chip supply volatility and recession risk. A beta of 1.46 means the stock tends to move more than the broader market. Shares traded as low as $196 over the past 52 weeks, a reminder that every scenario above can be undercut.
Bottom Line for a $1,000 Stake
Based on the projected five-year scenarios, $1,000 in Amazon today could be worth between $1,346.70 and $2,450.30 by 2031. The expected outcome is about $2,021.20.
AWS momentum and AI chip demand support that path, while heavy spending and uneven earnings could knock it off course. These are scenarios, not sure things, so watch AWS growth and free cash flow in each earnings report.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Apple představila chytrý displej HomeView za 299 USD a domácí kamery, zvonek i zámek od společnosti LG Electronics, čímž přímo vyzývá produkty Amazon Echo a Ring.
Apple’s HomeView smart display, shown with faces for a clock, FaceTime, photos, smart home controls and music. (Apple Image) Apple is going after Amazon’s smart home business on several fronts at once.
The iPhone and iPad maker on Tuesday unveiled HomeView, a $299 smart display that competes directly with Amazon’s Echo Show, along with a lineup of cameras, a video doorbell and a smart lock made by LG Electronics. That puts Apple in the core categories of Amazon-owned Ring for the first time.
Apple also announced a new Apple TV 4K and the HomePod mini 2, which will go up against Amazon’s Fire TV and Echo speakers.
Amazon made its own move into Apple’s territory last week, unveiling premium Alexa Tablets, including a Pro model that competes more directly with the iPad.
The new Apple HomeView has a 7-inch screen and comes in a tabletop version with a speaker base and a wall-mounted version. It recognizes up to six household members by their faces and switches to each person’s messages, calendar and apps.
It runs Siri AI, Apple’s rebuilt version of its voice assistant, which the company calls “profoundly more capable and conversational.” Pre-orders started Tuesday, and the device ships Nov. 13.
Amazon’s big lead: About two-thirds of U.S. smart speaker owners have an Amazon device, compared with about a quarter for Google and 7% for Apple, according to the latest data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, covering the 12 months ending in June. Apple’s share has stayed in the mid-single digits for years.
CIRP’s Michael Levin and Josh Lowitz wrote that Apple may go after people who don’t own a smart speaker rather than try to convert Amazon and Google customers. Only 57% of recent Apple buyers have a smart speaker of any kind, the firm found.
The HomeView is aimed at people already using Apple devices. Setup and the personal features require an iPhone or iPad. It won’t be sold in the European Union because Siri AI isn’t available there.
Apple is also hinting that its AI won’t stay free. A footnote in the HomeView announcement says certain Apple Intelligence features that rely on server-side models are subject to daily limits, with expanded access “available for a fee in the future.” Amazon’s Alexa+ is free with Prime or $19.99 a month on its own.
Competition for Ring: The new Apple Home Collection, designed with LG and Schneider Electric, includes a $249.95 LG video doorbell with two cameras, LG indoor, outdoor and floodlight cameras priced from $199.95 to $399.95, and a $349.95 LG deadbolt that unlocks automatically as its owner approaches, using ultra-wideband technology.
The accessories are set for release starting in December, with some arriving in early 2027.
Camera video history requires an iCloud+ storage plan, and Apple says there’s no separate camera subscription. Apple’s retail stores will also offer installation by ADT for an extra charge.
The LG lock was announced a week after Ring unveiled its first smart lock, a $249 deadbolt with no keyhole and a hand-turned dial that revives a dead battery. It’s due in the first quarter of next year. Ring also announced five new cameras priced from $69.99 to $219.99.
The LG lock includes a backup key slot. “If you have to have a key, it’s like, well, why have a smart lock?” Ring founder Jamie Siminoff told GeekWire last week.
Amazon's (AMZN +0.45%) fall sales event came and went last week. There could be one lingering Prime Big Deal Days opportunity worth exploring: Amazon stock itself.
Shares of the leading online retailer have declined 10% since peaking two months ago. Concerns about Amazon's surging capital expenditures in support of AI and a rotation out of consumer tech stocks have weighed on the bellwether's momentum. The downticks aren't a problem. They're an opportunity.
Image source: Getty Images.
It's time to go shopping
Amazon stock is slightly lagging the market in 2026, somewhat surprising given where it's at right now. The 20% in net sales it reported for its latest quarter was its strongest year-over-year jump since 2021. Amazon Web Services (AWS) -- its web-hosting business that is now accounting for a fifth of Amazon's revenue but three-fifths of its operating profit -- has been the key driver. That segment's revenue surged 37% in the second quarter, fueled by the AI boom.
It's not the only business that's accelerating at Amazon. The e-commerce business that put Amazon on the map three decades ago saw its North American sales rise 16% in its latest quarter. The bottom line is growing faster.
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It's hard not to like Amazon after its recent pullback. Yes, it's spending a lot of money on AI. It also happens to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the revolution, given AWS' growth. The early success of its own AI-powered conversational shopping assistant -- Rufus -- is also helping on the e-commerce end in a win-win way.
Paying less than 25 times next year's earnings isn't cheap for most stocks, but it's a bargain for Amazon. It has a strong moat in online retailing. AWS is a fast-growing cash cow. Amazon deserves a market premium. Today, you can ironically buy that premium at a discount. That's a sale. That's a Prime Big Deal Days sale that may not last long.
Rick Munarriz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Amazon deaktivoval prodejní účet společnosti Bed Scrunchie těsně před svátky v roce 2024. Její tržby v roce 2024 dosáhly přibližně 4,5 milionu USD. Amazon však stále představuje odhadem 70–80 % prodejů značky.
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This entrepreneur says Amazon nearly destroyed his business. He still shops on it every week. 'It's crazy.' By and Jessica Orwig You're currently following this author! Click to unsubscribe from email alerts.
Jack Nekhala has every reason to stop shopping on Amazon.
His company, Bed Scrunchie, generated about $4.5 million in 2024 and was on track for more, Nekhala said. However, Amazon deactivated its seller account just before the holidays that year, cutting off its biggest sales channel.
"Once the collapse happened through Amazon, it basically collapsed the entire business," Nekhala told Business Insider for our So Expensive video series.
That makes his next admission harder to say.
"I still shop on Amazon," Nekhala said. "I have a daughter. She needs bikes. She needs a scooter, she needs all sorts, she needs different things. And that's the place we go to."
He said he shops on Amazon two to three times a week and sometimes has several orders in a single day.
The habit bothers him more than he can explain, he said. "Continuing to shop there feels like being forced to sit down to dinner with the institution that upended your life."
Founders of the Bed Scrunchie: Jack Nekhala (left) and Michael Nusinkis (right). Courtesy of Jack The account shutdown, he said, left him and his business partner carrying debt and trying to rebuild the financial security they had spent nearly 20 years creating for their young families. "My life has not been the same," he said.
For Nekhala, his Amazon shopping habit reflects how deeply the online marketplace has become embedded in everyday life. In a recent survey of shoppers across the US and Europe, 75% of consumers said they buy from Amazon at least once a month.
"I do not shop there because I have forgiven what happened. I shop there because Amazon has made itself so convenient and embedded in everyday life that even people who feel harmed by it continue to depend on it," Nekhala said.
"It's crazy," he added of his own shopping habits. "It's really incredible what they've accomplished."
Amazon became the default
Business Insider The appeal of Amazon isn't just price. It's the convenience, Nekhala said.
Amazon already has his payment information, shipping addresses, and purchase history. Adding one more item to an order is often easier than creating an account somewhere else, he said.
"They remove all the friction," Michael Nusinkis, Nekhala's business partner, said.
"I think you just have this muscle memory. I need to buy something — Amazon," Nusinkis added.
The founders saw that same behavior from their own customers.
Before Amazon deactivated their seller account, the pair aired a national television infomercial directing viewers to a website where they could buy the Bed Scrunchie directly for $39.99.
On Amazon, the product sold for $44.95. And they said Amazon sales of the item consistently spiked whenever the infomercial aired.
"All advertising roads lead back to Amazon," Nekhala said.
Nekhala said customers would likely discover the product on television or the company's website, then go to Amazon to compare options, read reviews, and buy it—even at a higher price.
Surveys suggest up to three-quarters of Amazon shoppers start their product searches there.
Even after losing their account, the business couldn't leave Amazon
The bed scrunchie is designed to prevent sheets and mattress toppers from sliding off a mattress. Business Insider After months of disputes with Amazon, including allegations that the company had infringed its own patent and violated Amazon's review policies, Nekhala and Nusinkis lost their seller account. The founders dispute both allegations.
They now sell Bed Scrunchie to a third-party distributor, which keeps it available on Amazon for $49.99. Nekhala estimates that Amazon still accounts for 70% to 80% of the company's sales.
That means shoppers may see the Bed Scrunchie name on Amazon without realizing they are buying from a reseller—not the small business that created it, he said.
"Amazon shut out the people who invented and built the product, yet the product remains on its platform at a higher price," Nekhala added. "That contradiction is what makes continuing to shop there so painful."
Nekhala said the company would rather sell the product for less on its own website. But he believes Amazon's pricing policies make that difficult: Listing it more cheaply elsewhere, he said, could mean the product loses visibility or prominent placement on Amazon.
As a result, he said, sellers keep prices in line across retailers, even when it means customers pay more.
That's one of the practices at the center of a lawsuit California's attorney general filed against Amazon, alleging it pressures brands and third-party sellers to raise prices at competing retailers so Amazon isn't undercut.
In a statement to Business Insider, Amazon says its goal is to protect customers from overpaying and maintain trust in its marketplace by comparing prices with other reputable retailers. If a product is listed for less elsewhere, Amazon says it may choose not to prominently feature that offer, though it remains available for purchase. Amazon also argues California's case relies on a handful of emails taken out of context and says the challenged practices are common retail negotiations designed to deliver "low prices, vast selection, and unmatched convenience" for customers.
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A.C. Fowler You're currently following this author! Click to unsubscribe from email alerts.
A. C. is a Deputy Executive Producer for Business Insider's video team, developing strategy and overseeing production on several shows. Fowler was nominated for a 2026 News and Documentary Emmy Award for his work on Why concert tickets are so expensive — and who's to blame, and won a NATJA award for coverage of the plight of Sherpas on Mount Everest. He also published "Him," a first-of-its-kind documentary project intimately following the life of an Ohio man in a 3-year-long relationship with his AI chatbot. If you have story ideas, you can reach A. C. at [email protected] joining Business Insider he did his undergraduate studies in journalism and political science at Ohio University and later attended the graduate journalism program at Northwestern University. Between undergraduate and graduate school he worked in the Digital Strategies field in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Jessica Orwig You're currently following this author! Click to unsubscribe from email alerts.
Jessica Orwig is a senior editor at Business Insider, where she collaborates with reporters, editors, and producers across teams to shape, write, edit, and publish stories that connect with a global audience. While her roots are in science and technology journalism, her work today spans business, careers, culture, and the big ideas shaping the future.She earned her Master’s in Science & Technology Journalism from Texas A&M University and holds a Bachelor’s in Astronomy & Physics from The Ohio State University. Throughout her career, she’s helped lead coverage on everything from space exploration and climate change to innovation, the future of work, and evolving cultural trends.Career HighlightsLed coverage on scientific milestones, including:
Blue Origin's inaugural New Glenn launchIntuitive Machine's groundbreaking moon landing for the USSpaceX’s Polaris Dawn historic spaceflight NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Historic FlybyJapan’s SLIM lunar landingThe first image of a black holeIndia’s historic Moon landingSpaceX’s inaugural Starship-Super Heavy launchDiscovery of gravitational wavesNASA’s Pluto flybyReported on breaking news and scientific discoveries, including:
Microplastics in the human brainPeregrine Mission One’s failed flightThe Palisades firesSpaceX Starship explosionsDark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument’s 3D map of the universe and what it revealsA local cosmic void that shouldn’t existThe Boeing Starliner missionMexico City’s water crisisEarth’s mysterious inner core behaviorPopular stories she’s edited on science and health:
What it will take to modernize the American grid and usher in the clean-energy revolutionI study toxic microplastics. Here's how I protect myself and my kids at home.A mega-earthquake could strike the Pacific Northwest any day — and we're not preparedFlying is about to become even more miserableWhy the US can’t send humans to MarsThe world's most popular banana faces extinction but scientists' new creation could help save itScientists finally think they know where the most dangerous part of this US earthquake zone is and it's bad news for WashingtonOne of Mt. Everest's deadliest passages is growing even more treacherousJupiter's moon Europa generates enough oxygen to keep a million people alive for a day, NASA saysPopular stories she’s written and/or edited on careers, culture, life, and business:
He weighed over 400 pounds as an FBI undercover agent — and it became his best disguiseA former FBI Special Agent who infiltrated the Italian Mafia, Mexican cartels, and Russian and Asian organized crime groups says he fears 1 group above the restHe was diagnosed with colon cancer at 31 in prison, and his survival odds weren't great. Now 59, he says spiraling is pointless.I stopped bartending full-time to sell ice. My company now makes nearly $3 million a year, catering to Michelin-starred restaurants in New York City.My dad ran a food cart and called it the 'worst business.' I decided to follow in his footsteps anyway.I moved from the US to Rome for a slower pace of life, but after 7 years I've realized I'll never fully adjust to some Italian waysAfter losing too many bidding wars for a home in LA, I bought a 5-bedroom house in the suburbs. I quickly realized it was a mistake.We bought our dream home in Colorado, but wildfires and home insurance trends had us selling 1.5 years laterA woman who retired early at 58 thought she was ready with over $500,000 in savings. A few years later, it was gone.I've made over $40,000 selling plush dolls I scoop from claw machines. Here's how I learned to beat the game and turn my hobby into a profitable side hustle.A 17-year-old designed a cheaper, more efficient drone. The Department of Defense just awarded him $23,000 for it.Yukon gold miners are unearthing mummified ancient creatures and truckloads of fossils from the Ice Age. Take a look.Archaeologists are finding mysterious ancient objects on Norway's melting glaciers. Take a look.I'm an American mom in Italy. When I couldn't help my daughter with her homework, I realized how isolated I felt. Amazon Entrepreneur Retail More E-Commerce Small Business Insider
Wall Street's analyst community has reached something close to a verdict on Amazon, and the bears are nowhere to be found. But the real question is whether AWS's $496 billion backlog and surging AI revenue can overcome a troubling free…
Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) is $332.03. From a current price of $258.72, that works out to 28.33% upside. Our model rates the stock a buy, and we hold that view with moderate-to-high confidence.
24/7 Wall St. Price Target Summary Metric Value Current Price $258.72 24/7 Wall St. Price Target $332.03 Upside/Downside 28.33% Recommendation BUY Confidence Level 70% Wall Street is close to unanimous here. Analysts have 15 Strong Buy and 43 Buy ratings on the stock, against 2 Holds and zero Sells. Needham’s Laura Martin made the case for owning Amazon on CNBC this week (CNBC).
AWS Acceleration Keeps Amazon Within 10% of Its High The stock has risen 3.66% over the past week and is flat over the past month at -0.1%. It is up 11.89% year to date. Shares sit 9.9% below the 52-week high of $287.20 and 32% above the low of $196.
Second-quarter revenue came in at $200.61 billion, up 19.62% and ahead of the $196.43 billion estimate. GAAP EPS of $5.75 got a large lift from Anthropic investment gains. Comparable EPS of $1.88 still beat the $1.83 consensus. AWS grew 37% with a 39.4% operating margin.
Why Bulls See $382.91 on the Table AWS backlog stands at $496 billion, and management says the “lion’s share of capacity in 27…is largely reserved.” The AI and chips businesses each run above $25 billion annualized. Advertising grew 26%.
CEO Andy Jassy thinks AWS could become “a trillion dollar annual revenue business for us in time.” If those trends compound, our bull case makes $382.91, a 48% return.
Capex and Earnings Quality Are the Risks to Watch Amazon plans about $200 billion in 2026 capex, and trailing free cash flow has turned negative at -$7.6 billion. Third-quarter guidance calls for only 9% to 12% sales growth. Management has offered counterpoints.
Prime Day moved into Q2, and excluding that shift, Q3 growth would be “nearly 400 basis points higher.” Most AI capacity is also signed for “at least five-year terms.” Our bear case sits at $285.34.
Amazon Trades Between Its Cloud and Retail Rivals Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) competes with AWS through Azure, which grew 43%. It trades at 29x earnings with far higher margins.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) competes with Amazon in both cloud and ads. Google Cloud grew 82%, though Alphabet’s 16x multiple is flattered by equity gains.
Walmart (NASDAQ:WMT) is Amazon’s closest retail rival. Its eCommerce sales grew 23%, yet it trades at 39x earnings on thinner margins.
Company Trailing P/E Operating Margin Amazon 36x 11.16% Microsoft 29x 46.78% Alphabet 16x 32.06% Walmart 39x 4.18% Amazon trades below Walmart and above its cloud rivals. With AWS margins expanding, the 24/7 Wall St. price target looks reasonable next to this group.
Amazon Price Prediction 2026-2030 Our 24/7 Wall St. price target of $332.03 comes with a buy rating and 70% confidence. What tips the scale is AWS growth speeding up even as the business gets bigger.
The case strengthens if AWS stays above 30% growth and the reserved capacity turns into revenue. It weakens if free cash flow continues falling after 2027. On balance, the reward outweighs the risk.
Looking further out, here is where our model projects Amazon could trade at each year-end, assuming current growth trends hold.
Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target 2026 $274.63 2027 $348.17 2028 $416.92 2029 $463.32 2030 $503.44 These projections assume Amazon keeps executing on its current strategy. The returns on its AI infrastructure spending could push the result well above or below this path.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Polaris Financial Partners ve třetím čtvrtletí nakoupila 73 844 akcií společnosti Amazon.com za zhruba 18,57 milionu USD; Amazon.com tvoří 8,6 % jejího portfolia a je její třetí největší pozicí.
Polaris Financial Partners purchased a new stake in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 73,844 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock, valued at approximately $18,572,000. Amazon.com accounts for about 8.6% of Polaris Financial Partners’ holdings, making the stock its 3rd largest position.
Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Silvant Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in Amazon.com in the second quarter valued at $60,065,000. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio bought a new stake in Amazon.com during the second quarter valued at $909,868,000. Northstar Financial Companies Inc. acquired a new stake in Amazon.com during the 2nd quarter worth about $3,376,000. Gryphon Financial Partners LLC grew its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 5,125 shares during the period. Finally, First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. grew its holdings in Amazon.com by 1.7% during the 1st quarter. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. now owns 303,862 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $63,285,000 after acquiring an additional 5,104 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.20% of the company’s stock.
Insider Buying and Selling at Amazon.com In other Amazon.com news, CEO Douglas Herrington sold 6,362 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $259.01, for a total transaction of $1,647,821.62. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 476,681 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $123,465,145.81. The trade was a 1.32% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Matthew S. Garman sold 14,541 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.06, for a total value of $3,766,991.46. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 17,794 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,609,713.64. The trade was a 44.97% 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. In the last three months, insiders have sold 71,589 shares of company stock worth $18,580,515. 8.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.
Analyst Ratings Changes Several research analysts have recently weighed in on AMZN shares. Citigroup reissued a “market outperform” rating on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Friday, August 14th. Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and set a $365.00 target price (up from $330.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Bank of America raised their target price on Amazon.com from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Benchmark lifted their target price on Amazon.com from $370.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Finally, Monness Crespi & Hardt lifted their target price on Amazon.com from $315.00 to $330.00 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 issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $322.86. Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on AMZN
Key Headlines Impacting Amazon.com Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:
Positive Sentiment: AI and AWS optimism: AWS CEO Matt Garman said AI spending is not yet in a bubble, citing diversified customers and attractive returns. Analysts also point to AWS’s accelerating growth, custom-chip demand from major AI companies, and Amazon’s planned infrastructure investments as potential long-term catalysts. AWS CEO discusses AI spending Positive Sentiment: Analysts see upside: Needham described Amazon as undervalued, citing AI adoption, expanding margins, and cloud leadership. Technical analysts said a double-bottom breakout could open a path toward $320, with resistance near $267.56 and $287.20. Amazon valuation and AI outlook Positive Sentiment: Cost-cutting supports margins: Amazon is eliminating fewer than 1,000 positions, primarily in Stores, customer service, marketplace support, and engineering. The cuts may improve efficiency as the company shifts resources toward AI, although they also signal ongoing restructuring. Amazon job cuts Neutral Sentiment: Data-center transparency: Amazon said it will stop using nondisclosure agreements in negotiations with local governments over data centers, potentially easing opposition to AI infrastructure while exposing the company to greater public scrutiny. Amazon drops data-center NDAs Negative Sentiment: Regulatory and reputational risk: An investigation alleges Amazon pressured sellers to raise prices at competing retailers, potentially increasing antitrust scrutiny. Investigation into Amazon pricing practices Negative Sentiment: Heavy AI spending remains a concern: Amazon’s large capital commitments, including planned GPU deployments, could pressure free cash flow if AI demand or returns disappoint. Blocking third-party AI shopping agents may also create an opening for competitors. Amazon.com Stock Up 3.3% Shares of NASDAQ AMZN opened at $262.43 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.83 trillion, a P/E ratio of 21.11, a P/E/G ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $258.83 and a 200-day moving average price of $249.88. 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 posted its earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 earnings per share 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 company 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 business posted $1.68 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 19.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.03 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Amazon.com Company Profile (Free Report)
Amazon.com, Inc is a global technology and commerce company that operates online marketplaces, physical stores, and a broad portfolio of digital and cloud-based services. The company offers consumer products across categories such as electronics, household goods, apparel, groceries, and entertainment, while also providing third-party sellers with tools for listing, selling, and fulfilling orders.
Amazon’s major businesses include Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides cloud computing, storage, database, analytics, and artificial intelligence services; Prime, a membership program that includes shipping, streaming, and other benefits; and digital entertainment services such as Prime Video, Amazon Music, Kindle, and Audible.
Further Reading Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com 3 Unique ETFs With Strong Momentum for the End of the Year 3 Beaten-Down Biotech Stocks With Triple-Digit Upside and Big Catalysts Ahead Schneider Just Paid Up for PTC—Is the SaaSpocalypse Overdone? Delta Air Lines Faces a Fuel Crisis—But There’s a Silver Lining 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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Marotta Asset Management ve třetím čtvrtletí snížila svůj podíl v Amazon.com o 87,2 % prodejem 7 681 akcií; na konci čtvrtletí držela 1 127 akcií v hodnotě 281 000 USD.
Marotta Asset Management decreased its position in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 87.2% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,127 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after selling 7,681 shares during the quarter. Marotta Asset Management’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $281,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Polaris Financial Partners purchased a new stake in Amazon.com in the 3rd quarter worth $18,572,000. Boltwood Capital Management raised its holdings in Amazon.com by 3.9% during the third quarter. Boltwood Capital Management now owns 19,899 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $4,958,000 after acquiring an additional 750 shares during the period. GoalVest Advisory LLC raised its holdings in Amazon.com by 289.7% during the third quarter. GoalVest Advisory LLC now owns 86,308 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $21,504,000 after acquiring an additional 64,160 shares during the period. Planning Strategies Inc. lifted its position in shares of Amazon.com by 4.9% in the third quarter. Planning Strategies Inc. now owns 3,285 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $818,000 after acquiring an additional 152 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Private Client Services LLC lifted its position in shares of Amazon.com by 22.2% in the third quarter. Private Client Services LLC now owns 17,268 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $4,302,000 after acquiring an additional 3,132 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 72.20% of the company’s stock.
Amazon.com Stock Performance NASDAQ:AMZN opened at $262.43 on Friday. 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, Inc. has a 1 year low of $196.00 and a 1 year high of $287.20. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $258.83 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $249.88. The company has a market cap of $2.83 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.11, a PEG ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 1.45.
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. The business had revenue of $200.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $197.03 billion. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 18.00% and a net margin of 17.44%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.68 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.03 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Insider Buying and Selling In related news, CEO Matthew S. Garman sold 14,541 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.06, for a total transaction of $3,766,991.46. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 17,794 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,609,713.64. This represents a 44.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Douglas Herrington sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $251.50, for a total transaction of $251,500.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 474,681 shares in the company, valued at approximately $119,382,271.50. The trade was a 0.21% decrease in their position. 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 a total of 71,589 shares of company stock valued at $18,580,515 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 8.90% of the company’s stock.
Key Stories Impacting Amazon.com Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:
Positive Sentiment: AI and AWS optimism: AWS CEO Matt Garman said AI spending is not yet in a bubble, citing diversified customers and attractive returns. Analysts also point to AWS’s accelerating growth, custom-chip demand from major AI companies, and Amazon’s planned infrastructure investments as potential long-term catalysts. AWS CEO discusses AI spending Positive Sentiment: Analysts see upside: Needham described Amazon as undervalued, citing AI adoption, expanding margins, and cloud leadership. Technical analysts said a double-bottom breakout could open a path toward $320, with resistance near $267.56 and $287.20. Amazon valuation and AI outlook Positive Sentiment: Cost-cutting supports margins: Amazon is eliminating fewer than 1,000 positions, primarily in Stores, customer service, marketplace support, and engineering. The cuts may improve efficiency as the company shifts resources toward AI, although they also signal ongoing restructuring. Amazon job cuts Neutral Sentiment: Data-center transparency: Amazon said it will stop using nondisclosure agreements in negotiations with local governments over data centers, potentially easing opposition to AI infrastructure while exposing the company to greater public scrutiny. Amazon drops data-center NDAs Negative Sentiment: Regulatory and reputational risk: An investigation alleges Amazon pressured sellers to raise prices at competing retailers, potentially increasing antitrust scrutiny. Investigation into Amazon pricing practices Negative Sentiment: Heavy AI spending remains a concern: Amazon’s large capital commitments, including planned GPU deployments, could pressure free cash flow if AI demand or returns disappoint. Blocking third-party AI shopping agents may also create an opening for competitors. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on AMZN shares. Phillip Securities lowered Amazon.com from a “strong-buy” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a research note on Monday, August 3rd. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $320.00 target price (up from $315.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Roth Capital reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $325.00 price target on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Monday, August 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $375.00 price target (up from $335.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on Amazon.com from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Fifty-six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $322.86.
Read Our Latest Analysis on Amazon.com
About Amazon.com (Free Report)
Amazon.com, Inc is a global technology and commerce company that operates online marketplaces, physical stores, and a broad portfolio of digital and cloud-based services. The company offers consumer products across categories such as electronics, household goods, apparel, groceries, and entertainment, while also providing third-party sellers with tools for listing, selling, and fulfilling orders.
Amazon’s major businesses include Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides cloud computing, storage, database, analytics, and artificial intelligence services; Prime, a membership program that includes shipping, streaming, and other benefits; and digital entertainment services such as Prime Video, Amazon Music, Kindle, and Audible.
Further Reading Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com 3 Unique ETFs With Strong Momentum for the End of the Year 3 Beaten-Down Biotech Stocks With Triple-Digit Upside and Big Catalysts Ahead Schneider Just Paid Up for PTC—Is the SaaSpocalypse Overdone? Delta Air Lines Faces a Fuel Crisis—But There’s a Silver Lining 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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Amazon jedná o akvizici startupu zaměřeného na AI, Decartu, za 7 miliard USD, uvedl deník The Wall Street Journal. Dohoda zatím není potvrzena a jednání mohou ztroskotat.
Amazon is in talks to acquire Decart, a fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI) company. According to the WSJ, Amazon is planning to buy the company in a $7 billion deal, marking a big jump from its last funding round in May, which valued it at $4 billion.
Neither side has confirmed the deal, and according to the WSJ, talks could still fall apart or another suitor can come up.
The company has been growing fast, helped by the adequate capital from top venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital, Benchmark, Radical Ventures, Zeev Ventures, Nvidia, and Toyota Ventures.
Decart is creating software that makes it easier for developers to switch between different AI chips, a capability that has become more popular this year. It is also known for models that generate interactive video and simulated environments as one interacts with them. These models are known as Lucy and Oasis.
The potential acquisition comes a few months after Amazon Web Services gave Decart an early access to its Tranium chip. It was highly impressed by the founders, according to the WSJ.
The report comes at a time when Amazon is aiming to become a major player in various areas in the AI space. It is one of the biggest shareholders in Anthropic, a company that will launch an IPO at a $2 trillion valuation.
It has also built Tranium, its chips that it hopes will be bigger competitors to those made by Nvidia. Most importantly, Amazon is becoming a major infrastructure provider for companies in the AI industry. It is in the process of spending $220 billion in capital expenditure this year.
The report also comes at a time when large companies are scooping promising AI startups. As we reported earlier, Nvidia is in talks to acquire Reflection AI, a company that makes open-source AI models. If the deal goes through, it will be the biggest one it has executed. It recently announced a plan to acquire Hugging Face for $13 billion.
SpaceX recently acquired Cursor for $60 billion. Meta Platforms also made a bid for Manus, before abandoning it amid regulatory concerns. AMD recently acquired World Labs for $8.2 billion, while Stripe acquired OpenRouter for $7.2 billion.
Michael Moritz backed Google, PayPal, and Stripe, and Charlie Munger credited one specific trait for his success over smarter rivals. His single question about Amazon stops experienced investors cold and exposes the habit that quietly destroys most portfolios.
Sir Michael Moritz spent about 38 years at Sequoia Capital, where he backed companies like Google, YouTube, PayPal and Stripe. He has a simple explanation for why most investors fall short. On a new episode of Richer, Wiser, Happier from The Investor’s Podcast Network, Michael Moritz said: “Most investors are congenitally incapable of doing nothing. They just have to do something.”
In his view, the urge to act is the problem. Investors trim or sell for reasons that have little to do with a company’s future prospects, such as a scary headline, a round-number price or a gain that feels too big to leave on the table. Each trade feels productive in the moment. Over decades, all that activity cuts short the compounding that actually builds wealth.
Why Charlie Munger Singled Out Moritz’s Temperament The host said that when he asked Charlie Munger which investors were worth interviewing, Munger named one person: Moritz. Munger gave the credit to temperament over intellect. In the host’s account, Munger said Moritz “was not the leading intellectual, but temperamentally he was able to hang on to everything he did better than all his brighter partners.” Moritz said he was “incredibly flattered” that Munger would remember him that way.
Amazon Question That Stops Investors Cold The core of Moritz’s argument is Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction). Michael Moritz asked: “In the 30 years or so that Amazon has traded as a public company, how many days has that stock traded at an all-time high? That question always stops people in their tracks.”
The question lands because an all-time high feels like a ceiling. When a stock has never been higher, it looks extended, and selling feels wise. For a business that keeps compounding, though, new highs are routine. Each record gets exceeded as the business grows. Every one of those highs was a moment when selling felt reasonable and later proved costly.
The last decade shows how this plays out. Amazon closed at $262.43 on October 9, up 531.6% from an adjusted $41.55 ten years earlier. The five-year return is much smaller, a gain of 59.6% since October 2021, and that stretch tested anyone holding through the declines. This is the kind of stretch where Michael Moritz says most people lose their nerve: “There is nothing that beats the compounding power of a well-positioned company. But most people are unable to recognize that and capitulate, give up, are frightened.” Those investors, he added, look back years later full of regret.
What Amazon Owners Are Being Asked to Hold Through Now Amazon is testing that discipline again. Management committed to about $200 billion in 2026 capital spending on AI infrastructure, custom chips, robotics and Amazon Leo satellites, and trailing free cash flow has turned negative at -$7.6 billion. To an impatient shareholder, that alone looks like a reason to sell.
The operating results tell a different story. In its second-quarter release filed with the SEC, Amazon reported revenue of $200.61 billion, up 19.6%, and operating income of $27.46 billion, up 43%. AWS revenue rose 37% to $42.23 billion, and the AWS backlog reached $496 billion. CEO Andy Jassy said AWS could “very possibly be a trillion dollar annual revenue business for us in time.” Management also said data centers keep earning for “30-plus years” once they are running. That long return rewards patient owners and punishes those who sell during the build-out.
How Long-Term Owners Can Apply Moritz’s Discipline Moritz’s framework acts as a filter. Before selling, ask whether the reason has to do with the company’s future or only with its price chart. For Amazon, the business questions are whether results match third-quarter guidance of $197.0 billion to $202.0 billion in net sales and $22.5 billion to $26.5 billion in operating income, and whether the capex cycle turns into the free cash flow management has promised. By Moritz’s logic, a new all-time high tells you nothing about either one.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Synopsys uzavřel s Amazonem smlouvu v hodnotě více než 1 miliardy USD na licencování IP pro čipy a zvýšil výhled růstu tržeb do FY2030 na složené roční tempo růstu ve středních „náctých“ procentech.
Electronic design automation (EDA) company Synopsys NASDAQ: SNPS has recently experienced a resurgence in investor sentiment. Through mid-September, Synopsys shares were down more than 20% year-to-date (YTD). Since hitting its September low, the stock has surged more than 30%, putting shares in the green for the year.
Several key developments have aided the stock’s recovery, including an over $1 billion deal with Amazon NASDAQ: AMZN and a development deal with OpenAI. These events signal a potential inflection point in the stock’s trajectory, as Synopsys has so far been a chronic underperformer during the AI investment wave.
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Understanding Synopsys’ UnderperformanceSynopsys’ poor 2026 performance has been a microcosm of its longer-term underperformance during the AI investment era. From the beginning of 2023 through its September low, Synopsys shares returned just 15%. The stock’s recent surge lifts this figure to approximately 56%, but this is still far from impressive. Over the same period, the S&P 500’s return is approximately 110%, and the S&P 500 tech sector has returned around 225%.
Synopsys, Inc. (SNPS) Price Chart for Saturday, October, 10, 2026
Synopsys’ underperformance has been due to several factors. This includes weakness at Intel’s NASDAQ: INTC Foundry business, which has faced delays and has struggled to secure large contracts for its most advanced nodes. This hurts Synopsys’ intellectual property (IP) business because it invested significantly in developing these chips, but it only receives payment once customers commit to Intel’s technology.
There has also been a fear among some investors that AI tools could supplant current EDA tools, hurting demand longer-term. Luckily for Synopsys, the firm’s latest developments push back on these risks.
Synopsys Unlocks New IP Demand With AmazonSynopsys has signed an over $1 billion deal with Amazon, primarily based around its IP business. The deal includes a $1 billion license fee that allows Amazon to use Synopsys’ IP across multiple generations of its Graviton, Trainium, and Nitro chips. On top of this, Synopsys will receive a customization fee and royalties, which are part of its new application optimized IP (AoIP) business model. Synopsys’ traditional standards-based IP model only includes licensing and nonrecurring engineering fees.
With the AoIP model, Synopsys’ goal is that royalties, where it receives payment for each chip produced, will exceed license fees long-term. This provides much more upside to each AoIP agreement. The Amazon deal also helps mitigate the weakness at Intel’s Foundry because Amazon is already deploying its custom chips at scale, providing more certainty around royalty revenue. However, this applies to future generation chips, meaning royalties will not kick in for over a year from now.
By fiscal year 2030 (FY2030), Synopsys expects to generate $1 billion in AoIP revenue. Importantly, it bases this forecast only on current contracts and commitments, implying room for long-term upside potential. This deal demonstrates the importance of Synopsys’ IP for businesses pursuing long-term custom chip roadmaps. Additionally, the new AoIP model shows the company is exerting pricing power through customization and royalties, a strong positive signal.
OpenAI and Synopsys Partner to Accelerate Chip DevelopmentThe company’s deal with OpenAI also has significant implications. Together, the two firms will develop GPT-Synopsys, “a specialized model for chip design that brings together OpenAI's frontier AI with Synopsys' trusted EDA tools and chip design expertise.” Essentially, the companies will train a model that can operate Synopsys’ EDA tools, thereby accelerating the chip development process.
This is important because chip design involves running many experiments and then iterating until engineers find the best design. This creates a bottleneck where humans can only run so many experiments at once. By allowing engineers to autonomously explore a much greater range of designs, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman argues that companies can shave weeks or months off the design process.
Synopsys argues that this will expand its total addressable market because AI will use more of its EDA tools. This could also accelerate its IP business, as companies can bring newer chips into production faster. The deal also directly pushes back on the idea that AI models will displace EDA tools, as OpenAI itself clearly sees a need to leverage Synopsys’ expertise.
Synopsys Raises Outlook After Finding New Growth VectorsAmid these developments, Synopsys significantly raised its long-term guidance. Through FY2030, it now expects revenue to increase by a mid-teens compound annual growth rate, up from "double digits" before. The firm also targets an adjusted operating margin of 50% by FY2030, a significant improvement from its prior mid-40% expectation. This implies a large expansion over the coming years, with Synopsys guiding for a 41.5% adjusted operating margin in fiscal year 2026.
Synopsys’ deal with Amazon and its partnership with OpenAI represent two new ways the firm can benefit from AI development. Looking into 2027, it will be important to monitor whether Synopsys sees an uptick in its EDA growth through the OpenAI deal, and if the company can secure more large AoIP customers outside of Amazon. Should the company continue to gain momentum in these areas, it could provide considerable tailwinds for its financials and share price.
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Altar Rock LLC ve druhém čtvrtletí snížila svůj podíl v Amazon.com, Inc. o 59,8 % prodejem 6 699 akcií; nadále drží 4 500 akcií v hodnotě 1,073 milionu USD.
Altar Rock LLC cut its stake in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 59.8% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 4,500 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after selling 6,699 shares during the period. Amazon.com makes up approximately 1.5% of Altar Rock LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 18th biggest position. Altar Rock LLC’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $1,073,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.
Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of AMZN. Premier Financial Group bought a new stake in Amazon.com in the second quarter valued at about $315,000. Security National Bank of Sioux City Iowa IA boosted its holdings in Amazon.com by 44.9% during the second quarter. Security National Bank of Sioux City Iowa IA now owns 12,849 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $3,062,000 after purchasing an additional 3,980 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Altus USA Inc. boosted its holdings in Amazon.com by 2.3% during the second quarter. Wellington Altus USA Inc. now owns 7,569 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $1,804,000 after purchasing an additional 171 shares in the last quarter. Reynders McVeigh Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Amazon.com by 0.6% in the 2nd quarter. Reynders McVeigh Capital Management LLC now owns 166,954 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $39,792,000 after purchasing an additional 1,003 shares during the period. Finally, Bullseye Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Amazon.com in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $2,688,000. 72.20% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.
Amazon.com News Roundup Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:
Positive Sentiment: AI and AWS optimism: AWS CEO Matt Garman said AI spending is not yet in a bubble, citing diversified customers and attractive returns. Analysts also point to AWS’s accelerating growth, custom-chip demand from major AI companies, and Amazon’s planned infrastructure investments as potential long-term catalysts. AWS CEO discusses AI spending Positive Sentiment: Analysts see upside: Needham described Amazon as undervalued, citing AI adoption, expanding margins, and cloud leadership. Technical analysts said a double-bottom breakout could open a path toward $320, with resistance near $267.56 and $287.20. Amazon valuation and AI outlook Positive Sentiment: Cost-cutting supports margins: Amazon is eliminating fewer than 1,000 positions, primarily in Stores, customer service, marketplace support, and engineering. The cuts may improve efficiency as the company shifts resources toward AI, although they also signal ongoing restructuring. Amazon job cuts Neutral Sentiment: Data-center transparency: Amazon said it will stop using nondisclosure agreements in negotiations with local governments over data centers, potentially easing opposition to AI infrastructure while exposing the company to greater public scrutiny. Amazon drops data-center NDAs Negative Sentiment: Regulatory and reputational risk: An investigation alleges Amazon pressured sellers to raise prices at competing retailers, potentially increasing antitrust scrutiny. Investigation into Amazon pricing practices Negative Sentiment: Heavy AI spending remains a concern: Amazon’s large capital commitments, including planned GPU deployments, could pressure free cash flow if AI demand or returns disappoint. Blocking third-party AI shopping agents may also create an opening for competitors. Amazon.com Stock Performance Shares of Amazon.com stock opened at $262.43 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $258.83 and a two-hundred day moving average of $249.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 1.03. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.83 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.11, a PEG ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 1.45. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 52 week low of $196.00 and a 52 week high of $287.20. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results 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. The business had revenue of $200.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $197.03 billion. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 18.00% and a net margin of 17.44%. The firm’s revenue was up 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.68 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.03 EPS for the current year.
Analysts Set New Price Targets AMZN has been the subject of several analyst reports. Telsey Advisory Group set a $335.00 target price on Amazon.com and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Barclays reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $365.00 price target (up from $330.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Amazon.com from $330.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Finally, Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Amazon.com in a research note 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, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $322.86.
Read Our Latest Report on AMZN
Insider Activity In other Amazon.com news, SVP David Zapolsky sold 9,258 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.77, for a total value of $2,404,950.66. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president owned 41,190 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,699,926.30. This represents a 18.35% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Matthew S. Garman sold 14,541 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $259.06, for a total transaction of $3,766,991.46. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 17,794 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,609,713.64. This trade represents a 44.97% 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. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 71,589 shares of company stock valued at $18,580,515. 8.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.
About Amazon.com (Free Report)
Amazon.com, Inc is a global technology and commerce company that operates online marketplaces, physical stores, and a broad portfolio of digital and cloud-based services. The company offers consumer products across categories such as electronics, household goods, apparel, groceries, and entertainment, while also providing third-party sellers with tools for listing, selling, and fulfilling orders.
Amazon’s major businesses include Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides cloud computing, storage, database, analytics, and artificial intelligence services; Prime, a membership program that includes shipping, streaming, and other benefits; and digital entertainment services such as Prime Video, Amazon Music, Kindle, and Audible.
Featured Stories Five stocks we like better than Amazon.com Alphabet Introduces Gemini Agent—Can It Trigger a Breakout? Palantir’s Rally Puts Wall Street in Catch-Up Mode Ahead of November Earnings Tilray Finds a Path to Growth Without Waiting on U.S. Cannabis Reform Arista Networks Plugs Into All-Time 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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Amazon v listopadu nahradí šéfa Alexy Daniela Rausche Aidanem Marcussem, dosavadním viceprezidentem Fire TV. Změna přichází po uvedení tabletů s AI asistentem Alexa+.
The logo of Amazon's Alexa + is displayed on a screen during an Amazon Devices launch event in New York City, U.S., February 26, 2025. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab on Friday confirmed it was shuffling leadership in its Alexa division, a day after the company announced its first tablet computers featuring the voice assistant.
Daniel Rausch, a 17-year Amazon veteran who has served as vice president of Alexa and Echo for over three years, is stepping away from the unit next month, Amazon said in response to a Reuters inquiry.
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Rausch, who has served as the face of Alexa at events and global launches, will return in another capacity in the devices and services division in 2027.
In his place, Amazon will install Aidan Marcuss, currently the vice president of Fire TV, advertising and the Amazon appstore. Marcuss joined Amazon from Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab in early 2025. He oversaw the release of a new Fire TV stick last month, which has garnered mixed reviews.
Kevin Keith, a product and marketing vice president, will keep that role but also take on Marcuss' responsibilities for the time being, Amazon said. The company declined to provide additional detail about the changes.
Alexa has been a consistent money-loser for Amazon since its release in 2014.
Amazon spent several years developing a new version of the voice assistant offering generative AI that can respond to longer prompts. The service is featured in the new Alexa Tablets announced on Thursday that Amazon has priced as a high-end product compared with prior Fire tablets that were inexpensive.
Alexa+, as the latest version is known, is included in the $139-per-year Prime membership or for $20 monthly as a standalone service.
Reporting by Greg Bensinger Editing by Bill Berkrot
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
The state of California is accusing Amazon of a price-fixing scheme that pushes wholesale vendors to raise prices at competing stores like Target, Walmart, Chewy, and Best Buy. And the state says, after the discovery process, it now has receipts to prove it. The case centers on several email exchanges between Amazon vendor managers and brands like Levi's, GlobalOne, Hanes, and Scotts Miracle-Gro.
Business Insider obtained the full case file and reviewed hundreds of pages of documents and over a dozen email exchanges to investigate if Amazon uses its influence as the largest e-commerce company in the United States to compel vendors to raise prices at competing retailers. We also spoke with several third-party sellers, like the inventors of the Bed Scrunchie, who say they, too, are pressured by Amazon to raise prices at other retailers.
So, has Amazon become too big and powerful? And is it possible the company is using its power to drive up prices everywhere?
The state of California is accusing Amazon of a price-fixing scheme that pushes wholesale vendors to raise prices at competing stores like Target, Walmart, Chewy, and Best Buy. And the state says, after the discovery process, it now has receipts to prove it. The case centers on several email exchanges between Amazon vendor managers and brands like Levi's, GlobalOne, Hanes, and Scotts Miracle-Gro.
Business Insider obtained the full case file and reviewed hundreds of pages of documents and over a dozen email exchanges to investigate if Amazon uses its influence as the largest e-commerce company in the United States to compel vendors to raise prices at competing retailers. We also spoke with several third-party sellers, like the inventors of the Bed Scrunchie, who say they, too, are pressured by Amazon to raise prices at other retailers.
So, has Amazon become too big and powerful? And is it possible the company is using its power to drive up prices everywhere?
Amazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move from Microsoft earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with opposition leading to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco. Meanwhile, a wave of startups is betting that consumers will hand AI agents access to their inboxes, files, and credit cards — if they can get websites to let them in.
On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Anthony Ha, Sean O’Kane, and Rebecca Bellan dig into whether ditching NDAs will change how data center deals get done, why trust may be the real product for personal AI startups, plus a couple of deals of the week.
Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
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Theresa Loconsolo is an audio producer at TechCrunch focusing on Equity, the network’s flagship podcast. Before joining TechCrunch in 2022, she was one of 2 producers at a four-station conglomerate where she wrote, recorded, voiced and edited content, and engineered live performances and interviews from guests like lovelytheband. Theresa is based in New Jersey and holds a bachelors degree in Communication from Monmouth University.
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Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock rose nearly 1% during Friday’s premarket session as broader market sentiment improved. Nasdaq futures gained 0.72%, while S&P 500 futures climbed 0.37%, signaling stronger investor appetite for risk.
The gains come as the company expands across e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. Investors are also weighing which businesses could drive its next phase of earnings growth.
Analyst Sees Amazon Stock As UndervaluedNeedham analyst Laura Martin sees Amazon stock as undervalued, citing its customer ecosystem, growing AI adoption and higher-margin cloud operations.
Martin told CNBC on Thursday that only about 20% of Amazon’s traffic is exposed to outside AI-driven commerce tools because most shoppers go directly to Amazon’s website or app.
She also said 67% of Amazon users now use AI when searching for products on the platform.
AI Infrastructure Gives Amazon a Competitive EdgeMartin believes generative AI will favor the largest technology companies because they have stronger infrastructure, deeper technology resources and greater control over their ecosystems.
Martin contrasted Amazon with Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google and Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META), saying those companies historically operated with lighter capital requirements but are now spending more heavily on infrastructure.
Amazon, by comparison, has long invested heavily in physical assets and data centers, which Martin views as a core strength.
She said that experience could help Amazon as AI demand increases and large technology companies spend more on computing capacity.
Cloud Growth and Higher Margins Drive Earnings PotentialMartin said Amazon has effectively become a cloud company, with its cloud business growing 40% at roughly 35% margins.
By contrast, she said e-commerce operates at about 1% margins and requires heavy investment, even though it helps fund Amazon’s broader operations.
Martin said Amazon can turn physical infrastructure into much higher-margin cloud revenue, improving its earnings power compared with the lower-margin retail business.
The stock carries a consensus Buy rating, with an average analyst price forecast of $335 across 50 analysts. Forecasts range from $250 to $400. Recent analyst actions include:
Tigress Financial: Raised its price forecast to $385 from a previous level on Oct. 6, maintaining a Buy rating. TD Cowen: Maintained its Buy rating and $350 price forecast on Oct. 5. Rosenblatt: Raised its price forecast to $360 on Sept. 30, maintaining a Buy rating. AMZN Price Action: Amazon.com shares were up 0.77% at $256.00 during premarket trading on Friday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
