For more than two decades, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has been the trailblazer in the e-commerce industry. In the process, Mr Bezos has become the world’s most affluent fellow, leaving traditional billionaires in his dizzying wake.
But, Amazon is a public company, and everyone can get a piece of Jeff’s pie. That’s down to Amazon.com being the poster child of online retail, selling its inventory, and offering third-party sales and product fulfilment.
This hybrid business model has spun off a fast-growing advertising, cloud, subscriptions, and web hosting empire. This article will take a comprehensive look at what makes Amazon stock tick.
Looking at the Numbers
Amazon’s stock bounced back from its lowest $2,881.00 to $3,773.08 – gaining nearly a thousand dollars over the last 12 months. While it’s just over half of Apple Inc.’s $3 trillion market cap, Amazon’s $1.66 trillion value is more than ten times that of Boeing.
According to thirty Wall Street analysts, the average price target for Amazon is $4,137.50 over the last three months.
The upper limit of analyst predictions is $4,700.00, whereas the lowest forecast is $3,800.00. The average price target is a 26.72 per cent increase from the current $3,265.08 price. It’s interesting to see how analysts remain bullish on a well-priced stock.
Indeed, the analyst rating for Amazon is a unanimous “Strong Buy.”
Amazon Earnings Reports
In early February 2022, Amazon will make its earnings report public. The last report came out on October 28, 2021, and the company reported earnings per share of $6.12 for the quarter. However, it missed the consensus estimate of $8.898 by -$2.778, even though analysts consider the current price undervalued.
Amazon does not currently pay any dividends, and its next earnings report isn’t yet available.
Should You Buy Amazon Stock?
Amazon currently has 507,150,000 shares outstanding. It’s still an excellent time to buy if you can afford it and care about analysts’ optimistic outlook on the stock.
Amazon reported an EPS of $6.12 in its last earnings report, so it missed expectations of $8.898. the stock price dipped -0.591 per cent after the earnings report became public.
One of the world’s largest hedge funds, Fisher Asset Management LLC holds Amazon shares valued at around 6 billion. It also has about 51 billion in Boeing shares.
Conclusion
Amazon is already planning its first large-format retail stores in a move calculated to up-end Walmart’s business. It’s a straight battle over the future of e-commerce, grocery shopping, and retail. Amazon took the first set without any real opposition. But would drawing the first blood favour its stock price? Walmart won’t be giving up territory so quickly.
Walmart has 11,500 stores sitting pretty across 28 countries. Around 4,743 of those are in the US. It had redesigned 1,000 of them in 2021 to streamline and make the shopping experience faster for consumers.
Unless Amazon’s warehouse distribution strategy is novel and efficient enough, this move may backfire. But, of course, Walmart would attempt to be aggressive in building its online marketplace.
Amazon may have stoked the fury of a tiger, but if it wins, you can expect massive gains for its shareholders.
Note: Please do not invest money or assets in the financial markets that you cannot afford to lose. This article should not be construed to be investment advice and is for information purposes only.