Amazon.com, Inc. $AMZN is Asahi Life Asset Management CO. LTD.’s 6th Largest Position

Asahi Life Asset Management CO. LTD. lessened its stake in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 8.1% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 26,087 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after selling 2,289 shares during the period. Amazon.com accounts for 3.4% of Asahi Life Asset Management CO. LTD.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 6th largest holding. Asahi Life Asset Management CO. LTD.’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $6,021,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of AMZN. Brighton Jones LLC raised its stake in Amazon.com by 10.9% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 4,036,091 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $885,478,000 after purchasing an additional 397,007 shares during the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC boosted its stake in Amazon.com by 4.1% during the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 25,045 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $5,495,000 after purchasing an additional 986 shares during the last quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG grew its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 2,016,869 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $442,481,000 after buying an additional 54,987 shares in the last quarter. Highview Capital Management LLC DE raised its position in shares of Amazon.com by 5.5% in the fourth quarter. Highview Capital Management LLC DE now owns 28,975 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $6,357,000 after buying an additional 1,518 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Liberty Square Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Amazon.com in the fourth quarter valued at about $2,153,000. 72.20% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on AMZN shares. Phillip Securities upgraded shares of Amazon.com from a “moderate buy” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $280.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 13th. Scotiabank reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $325.00 target price (up from $275.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. BNP Paribas Exane boosted their target price on Amazon.com from $320.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 5th. Wedbush dropped their price target on Amazon.com from $340.00 to $300.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 6th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on Amazon.com from $310.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, April 23rd. Fifty-seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Amazon.com presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $312.52.

Amazon.com Trading Down 1.8%

AMZN opened at $256.52 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.76 trillion, a PE ratio of 30.68, a P/E/G ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 1.44. Amazon.com, Inc. has a one year low of $196.00 and a one year high of $278.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 1.18. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $246.43 and its 200 day moving average price is $232.58.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The e-commerce giant reported $2.78 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.63 by $1.15. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 19.92% and a net margin of 12.22%.The company had revenue of $181.52 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $177.28 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.59 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 7.71 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Amazon.com

In other Amazon.com news, CEO Matthew S. Garman sold 15,467 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $263.40, for a total transaction of $4,074,007.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 14,159 shares in the company, valued at $3,729,480.60. This trade represents a 52.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, SVP David Zapolsky sold 9,270 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.53, for a total transaction of $2,489,273.10. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president directly owned 41,190 shares in the company, valued at $11,060,750.70. This trade represents a 18.37% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 194,774 shares of company stock worth $51,348,244 in the last 90 days. 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: Amazon moved Prime Day to June 23-26 and kept it a four-day event, which could lift near-term e-commerce sales and membership engagement. Reuters Prime Day article
• Positive Sentiment: The event will include new Alexa AI features, reinforcing Amazon’s AI strategy and potentially improving shopping conversion. Forbes article on Alexa AI-powered Prime Day
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst commentary remained constructive, with bullish Wall Street coverage and price-target increases helping support the stock. Zacks analyst article
• Neutral Sentiment: Amazon’s cloud and AI businesses continue to draw attention, including reports that AWS is expanding AI-related investment and that its Anthropic stake has become far more valuable. Business Insider article on Anthropic stake
• Negative Sentiment: Amazon faces fresh regulatory and legal pressure, including an EU cloud procurement review that could make it harder for AWS to win certain government contracts. Reuters EU cloud rules article
• Negative Sentiment: Amazon’s Ring unit was hit with a class-action privacy lawsuit over facial recognition features, adding to ongoing data-privacy scrutiny. Reuters Ring lawsuit article
• Negative Sentiment: Investor sentiment may also be weighed by a report that Stanley Druckenmiller sharply reduced his Amazon position, which can be read as a cautious signal from a high-profile fund manager. Motley Fool Druckenmiller article

Amazon.com 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.