Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) Shares Down 4.6% – Here’s What Happened

Shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) traded down 4.6% during trading on Thursday. The company traded as low as $248.00 and last traded at $250.38. 48,253,163 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 5% from the average daily volume of 46,172,777 shares. The stock had previously closed at $262.37.

Key Amazon.com News

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

• Positive Sentiment: AWS growth is accelerating, with analysts focused on stronger demand for AI infrastructure, a large cloud backlog and potential margin expansion. Morgan Stanley named Amazon a top pick and raised its price target to $350, citing AWS growth, advertising, Prime, and fulfillment automation as additional catalysts. Amazon’s $350 Price Target Faces a Big Earnings Test
• Positive Sentiment: CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon’s Trainium chips could reduce AI inference costs, which he characterized as roughly 10 times too high today. Successful adoption of internally designed chips could lower AWS infrastructure costs and improve profitability. Amazon CEO Discusses AI Inference Costs and Trainium
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts also see longer-term upside from warehouse automation, logistics expansion and advertising monetization, while Amazon’s planned UK entry-level hiring initiative may support its workforce and public-image goals. Amazon Logistics Automation Offers Long-Term Margin Gains
• Neutral Sentiment: Investors are awaiting the October 29 quarterly report, which is expected to clarify AWS growth, cloud margins, capital-spending guidance, free-cash-flow recovery and early Prime Day demand. Amazon Earnings Scheduled for October 29
• Negative Sentiment: The $220 billion investment plan has pushed free cash flow into the red and raised concerns that AI spending may outpace near-term returns. Reports that Nvidia hardware is waiting for available data-center power add execution risk to the infrastructure buildout. Amazon AI Hardware Awaits Data-Center Power

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Yorkville Ives assumed coverage on Amazon.com in a research report on Monday, October 19th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $300.00 target price on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $375.00 price target (up from $335.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Friday, July 31st. DA Davidson restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $250.00 price objective 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. Finally, Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $320.00 price target (up from $315.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. Fifty-seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $322.53.

Amazon.com Stock Down 1.0%

The company has a current ratio of 1.03, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The firm has a market cap of $2.68 trillion, a P/E ratio of 19.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.45. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $255.56 and its two-hundred day moving average is $253.29.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) 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. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 7.55 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Amazon.com news, CFO Brian T. Olsavsky sold 6,172 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.31, for a total transaction of $1,606,633.32. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 109,207 shares in the company, valued at $28,427,674.17. This represents a 5.35% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Matthew Garman sold 14,541 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 $4,609,713.64. This represents a 44.97% 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 three months, insiders sold 71,589 shares of company stock worth $18,580,515. 8.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Amazon.com

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of AMZN. Bank of America Corp DE acquired a new position in Amazon.com during the 2nd quarter valued at about $22,218,775,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in shares of Amazon.com in the 2nd quarter worth $16,341,405,000. Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new stake in shares of Amazon.com in the second quarter valued at about $12,831,376,000. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. purchased a new position in Amazon.com during the second quarter worth about $6,631,466,000. Finally, Jupiter Topco LLC purchased a new position in Amazon.com during the second quarter worth about $5,910,083,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 72.20% of the company’s stock.

Amazon.com Company Profile

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.