Amazon stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
May 21st, 2019
4
Amazon.com, Inc. engages in the retail sale of consumer products and subscriptions in North America and internationally. The company operates through three segments: North America, International, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) segments.
Should I buy Amazon stock?
Trading stocks requires experience and discipline, and your buying and selling decisions must come following a methodology. Trading strategies are meant for helping you in the decision process of what stocks to pick and when is the best time to buy them. At Stocks2.com, we use very simple but trusted and powerful trend following trading strategies. Simple things usually work the best.Currently, Amazon.com stock doesn't match any of these trading strategies, so our recommendation is not to buy.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Amazon.com stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are posted by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we collected 15 ratings published for AMZN stock in the last month. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for AMZN stock, with 14 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-4-8 | Societe Generale | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-4-29 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-26 | UBS Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-26 | Raymond James | Outperform | Outperform |
| 2019-4-26 | Raymond James | Outperform | Outperform |
| 2019-4-26 | Piper Jaffray Companies | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-4-26 | Oppenheimer | Outperform | Outperform |
| 2019-4-26 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-26 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-4-26 | Goldman Sachs Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-26 | Deutsche Bank | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-4-26 | Deutsche Bank | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-4-26 | Credit Suisse Group | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-4-26 | Barclays | Overweight | In-Line |
| 2019-4-26 | Bank of America | Buy | Buy |
Amazon stock analysis
Daily outlook
Shares of Amazon.com closed today at $1,857.52 and stayed steady a tight -0.08%.
Amazon.com shares stayed steady -0.08% to $1,857.52 today. Since price and SMA200d lines crossed up on March, AMZN climbed $145.16 (8.48%).
Weekly outlook
Amazon.com shares decreased -0.61% this week, ending at $1,857.52. With this, it's been 3 sliding weeks in a row, loosing $-104.94 (-5.38%).
Price pattern shows an uptrend with two rising tops and bottoms, and now trading upwards to the $1,964.40 resistance. Since SMA20w and SMA40w crossed up this week, AMZN price slid a -0.61%. Since mid March when AMZN stock price broke up the SMA40w line, it gained $145.16 (8.48%). Far behind is the all-time high Amazon.com hit early September but price is just -9.41% below that top.
Amazon stock price history
Amazon IPO was on May 15th, 1997 at $2.44 per share1. Since then, AMZN stock grew a 76,027.90%, with an average of 3,455.80% per year. If you had invested right after AMZN's IPO a $1,000 in Amazon stock in 1997, it would worth $760,279.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
Amazon stock historical price chart
AMZN stock reached all-time highs on September with a price of $2,050.50.
Amazon stock price target is $2,199.00
Nobody can reliably foresee how stock prices may evolve in the future. However, many stock price predictions are published every day by banks, financial institutions and independent analysts. The accuracy of these stock price predictions is not very high, and you should not blindly believe and make decisions only based on what this ratings or price target predictions say. We found 10 price forecasts for AMZN stock published in the last month:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-4-8 | Societe Generale | Initiates | n/a | $2,370.00 | - |
| 2019-4-26 | Raymond James | Raises Target | $1,960.00 | $2,030.00 | 3.6% |
| 2019-4-26 | Piper Jaffray Companies | Raises Target | $2,070.00 | $2,225.00 | 7.5% |
| 2019-4-26 | Oppenheimer | Reiterates | $2,085.00 | $2,100.00 | 0.7% |
| 2019-4-26 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Reiterates | $2,050.00 | $2,200.00 | 7.3% |
| 2019-4-26 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Raises Target | $2,050.00 | $2,200.00 | 7.3% |
| 2019-4-26 | Deutsche Bank | Raises Target | $2,300.00 | $2,315.00 | 0.7% |
| 2019-4-26 | Credit Suisse Group | Reiterates | $2,100.00 | $2,200.00 | 4.8% |
| 2019-4-26 | Barclays | Raises Target | $1,930.00 | $2,050.00 | 6.2% |
| 2019-4-26 | Bank of America | Reiterates | $2,100.00 | $2,300.00 | 9.5% |
| (in average) | $2,071.70 | $2,199.00 | 6.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
After presenting its last earnings report on April/24, Amazon.com decreased a lame -2.33%. As soon as we get its actual EPS from the earnings report, we will update this report.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 0.4 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-10-26 | 0.03 | 0.52 | 1,633.3% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-02-01 | 1.85 | 2.16 | 16.8% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-04-26 | 1.22 | 3.27 | 168.0% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-07-26 | 2.49 | 5.07 | 103.6% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-25 | 3.29 | 5.75 | 74.8% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-01-31 | 5.55 | 6.04 | 8.8% |
| 2019-Q1 | 2019-04-24 | 4.73 | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
Compared to 2017, last anual turnover report draw an exceptional growth of 30.93% to $232,887.00 M dollars. However, its income margin (compared to revenues) inched to 4.33%, that is $10,073.00 million. To have an up to date picture of the financial situation of Amazon.com, we have calculated the trailing twelve month (TTM) sales and income figures. TTM values are the sum of the last 4 quarters and aproximate to an annual fiscal report ending in 2019-Q1 that can be compared to 2018 fiscal year results. Annual Amazon.com TTM sales up to March 2019 were $241,545.00 and income was $12,005.00 million dollars. If we compare this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can review Amazon.com business evolution since December 2018: Annual revenues up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, gained a good 3.72%. However, profit margin (net income/sales) stayed steady at 4.33%.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $74,450 M | - | $274 M0.4% | - |
| 2014 | $88,988 M | 19.53% | $-241.00 M-0.3% | -187.96% |
| 2015 | $107,006 M | 20.25% | $596 M0.6% | -347.30% |
| 2016 | $135,987 M | 27.08% | $2,371 M1.7% | 297.82% |
| 2017 | $177,866 M | 30.80% | $3,033 M1.7% | 27.92% |
| 2018 | $232,887 M | 30.93% | $10,073 M4.3% | 232.11% |
| TTM | $241,545 M | 3.72% | $12,005 M5.0% | 19.18% |
Quarterly financial results
Amazon.com posted $59,700.00 million in sales for 2019-Q1, a -17.52% less compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income marked $3,561.00 M with a profit margin of 5.96%. Profit margin grew a 1.78% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 4.18%. When comparing sales to same quarter last year, Amazon.com sales marked an amazing increase and rocketed a 16.96%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $37,960 M | - | $197 M0.5% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $43,740 M | 15.23% | $256 M0.6% | 29.95% |
| 2017-Q4 | $60,453 M | 38.21% | $1,857 M3.1% | 625.39% |
| 2018-Q1 | $51,042 M | -15.57% | $1,629 M3.2% | -12.28% |
| 2018-Q2 | $52,886 M | 3.61% | $2,534 M4.8% | 55.56% |
| 2018-Q3 | $56,576 M | 6.98% | $2,883 M5.1% | 13.77% |
| 2018-Q4 | $72,383 M | 27.94% | $3,027 M4.2% | 4.99% |
| 2019-Q1 | $59,700 M | -17.52% | $3,561 M6.0% | 17.64% |
Amazon.com ownership
When you are planning to invest in a stock, it's always worth to check its ownership structure.Amazon.com shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 16.12% of all shares. Investopedia has a good article about the top 4 shareholders in Amazon.
In case of Amazon.com stock, 57.12% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for AMZN stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
For a better context understanding, the next table shows ownership data compared to other related companies:
| AMZN | BKS | CBS | COST | EBAY | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $914.5 B | $364.4 M | $17.2 B | $109.9 B | $31.9 B |
| Total shares | 492.3 M | 73.0 M | 352.0 M | 439.9 M | 871.5 M |
| Float shares | 413.2 M | 61.9 M | 333.3 M | 433.2 M | 823.3 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 57.1% | 80.2% | 0.0% | 73.5% | 88.0% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 16.1% | 25.3% | 7.8% | 0.5% | 5.3% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Amazon summary
| Tuesday, May 21st, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $1874.79 |
| Close | $1857.52 |
| Day range | $1846.00 - $1879.00 |
| Previous close | $1858.97 |
| Session gain | -0.08% |
| Average true range | $45.25 |
| 50d mov avg | $1,841.94 |
| 100d mov avg | $1,735.38 |
| 200d mov avg | $1,756.11 |
| Daily pattern | lt02a |
| Weekly pattern | lb02a |
Amazon.com performance
Performance as an absolute value is never valid if it's not benchmarked against competitors or related stocks in the industry. For Amazon.com, the comparison is made against Barnes & Noble, CBS, Costco Wholesale, eBay, Alphabet, MercadoLibre, Microsoft, Overstock.com and Walmart.| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMZNAmazon.com | 13.85% | 23.66% | 15.36% |
| BKSBarnes & Noble | -19.90% | -21.54% | 2.46% |
| CBS | -5.01% | -8.61% | -2.67% |
| COSTCostco Wholesale | 15.86% | 14.19% | 27.29% |
| EBAYeBay | -2.06% | 29.12% | -3.23% |
| GOOGLAlphabet | 3.39% | 12.07% | 6.49% |
| MELIMercadoLibre | 53.17% | 84.93% | 82.06% |
| MSFTMicrosoft | 14.78% | 24.11% | 31.11% |
| OSTKOverstock.com | -43.74% | -46.54% | -66.40% |
| WMTWalmart | 2.67% | 8.06% | 25.35% |
Amazon.com competitors
One check before investing in any stock is to have a look a list of its competitors, in this case for Amazon.com. We picked 9 companies as Amazon.com competitors as they are in the same industry or have similar market objectives.- Barnes & Noble (BKS)
- CBS (CBS)
- Costco Wholesale (COST)
- eBay (EBAY)
- Alphabet (GOOGL)
- MercadoLibre (MELI)
- Microsoft (MSFT)
- Overstock.com (OSTK)
- Walmart (WMT)
Latest Amazon stock news
- Investors.comAmazon.com Stock Drags Nasdaq As Indexes Close MixedFebruary 1, 2019
- Investors.comDow Jones Futures: Amazon.com, CVS Lead 5 Key After-Hours Stock MoversFebruary 1, 2019
- InvestorPlaceTrade of the Day: Amazon.com Stock Reaches Tough Overhead ResistanceJanuary 10, 2019
- InvestorPlaceIs CGC Stock the Amazon.com of Pot?November 6, 2018
- InvestorPlaceCould Alphabet Stock Be Disrupted by Amazon.com?November 2, 2018