Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) Shares Up 1.3% Following Analyst Upgrade

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares shot up 1.3% during trading on Thursday after Arete Research raised their price target on the stock from $264.00 to $283.00. Arete Research currently has a buy rating on the stock. Amazon.com traded as high as $235.72 and last traded at $234.34. 31,606,587 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 27% from the average session volume of 43,007,961 shares. The stock had previously closed at $231.31.

A number of other equities research analysts have also issued reports on the company. Pivotal Research raised their price target on Amazon.com from $285.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Monness Crespi & Hardt lifted their target price on Amazon.com from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $300.00 target price (up from $275.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Finally, Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $340.00 price objective on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifty-four have given a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $295.42.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Daniel P. Huttenlocher sold 1,237 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $226.61, for a total value of $280,316.57. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 26,148 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,925,398.28. The trade was a 4.52% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Douglas J. Herrington sold 2,500 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $233.22, for a total value of $583,050.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 505,934 shares in the company, valued at $117,993,927.48. This trade represents a 0.49% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 79,734 shares of company stock worth $18,534,017. 9.70% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Key Headlines Impacting Amazon.com

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

• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support is strengthening — TD Cowen raised its price target to $315 and Scotiabank lifted its target to $300, adding institutional momentum that can drive buying interest. TD Cowen raises PT
• Positive Sentiment: Amazon is expanding physical retail and fulfillment with a massive new Orland Park megastore that blends shopping and fulfillment — a tangible example of omnichannel scale that supports faster delivery and higher-margin services. Amazon plans largest retail store
• Positive Sentiment: AI and healthcare initiatives (Health AI for One Medical, Alexa/agentic features, AWS AI positioning) bolster the long-term growth narrative and AWS monetization prospects. Bernstein and others highlight Amazon as a leading AI bull case. Amazon One Medical AI
• Neutral Sentiment: Macro/industry headlines are mixed: Bezos’ Blue Origin TeraWave satellite push and SpaceX IPO chatter raise industry focus on space infrastructure (some overlap with Amazon’s Kuiper ambitions), but impact on AMZN is indirect. Blue Origin TeraWave
• Neutral Sentiment: Market chatter offers differing trader strategies ahead of February earnings (buy-ahead vs. wait-for-confirmation), increasing short-term volatility but not changing the fundamental story. 2 ways to trade Amazon ahead of earnings
• Negative Sentiment: Technical and risk warnings: some analysts and chartists flag a risky pattern and downside risk ahead of earnings, which can trigger selling if results disappoint. Alarming chart pattern
• Negative Sentiment: Near-term margin pressure concerns — CEO comments about tariffs “creeping” into prices and a Raymond James note flagging agentic commerce headwinds could weigh on margins or sentiment. Tariffs creeping into prices
• Negative Sentiment: Some fund activity and cautious analyst trims (e.g., Rothschild/Redburn cut to neutral) add to a mixed tape and may cap near-term upside. Rothschild trims PT

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Amazon.com by 2.1% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 849,721,601 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $186,420,422,000 after acquiring an additional 17,447,045 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Amazon.com by 2.0% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 381,681,441 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $83,805,794,000 after purchasing an additional 7,584,156 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Amazon.com by 1.7% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 216,717,657 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $47,332,625,000 after purchasing an additional 3,721,658 shares during the period. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC increased its stake in shares of Amazon.com by 542,733.6% during the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 132,641,388 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $29,100,194,000 after purchasing an additional 132,616,953 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Amazon.com during the 2nd quarter worth about $27,438,011,000. 72.20% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Amazon.com Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 1.01. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.51 trillion, a PE ratio of 33.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.45 and a beta of 1.37. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $231.66 and its two-hundred day moving average is $228.86.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $1.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.57 by $0.38. The business had revenue of $180.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $177.53 billion. Amazon.com had a net margin of 11.06% and a return on equity of 23.62%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.43 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 6.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Amazon.com Company Profile

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

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