Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Douglas Herrington Sells 6,362 Shares

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Douglas Herrington sold 6,362 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $259.01, for a total transaction of $1,647,821.62. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 476,681 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $123,465,145.81. This represents a 1.32% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Amazon.com Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ AMZN traded down $1.01 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $261.06. 25,446,790 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 48,878,555. Amazon.com, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $196.00 and a fifty-two week high of $287.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 0.87. The firm has a market cap of $2.82 trillion, a PE ratio of 21.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.72 and a beta of 1.45. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $250.18 and a 200-day simple moving average of $239.48.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.82 by $3.93. The firm had revenue of $200.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $197.03 billion. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 18.00% and a net margin of 17.44%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 19.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.68 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.05 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on AMZN shares. UBS Group set a $318.00 target price on Amazon.com and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Amazon.com from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. New Street Research raised their price objective on shares of Amazon.com from $280.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, May 4th. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus set a $319.00 target price on shares of Amazon.com and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifty-six have given a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Amazon.com presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $322.39.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Amazon.com

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

Key Stories Impacting Amazon.com

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

• Positive Sentiment: AWS and AI remain the main bullish catalysts. Analysts and commentators point to accelerating AWS demand, a reported $496 billion backlog and the potential for AWS revenue to approach $1 trillion annually over time. Amazon’s relationships with Anthropic and OpenAI could further increase cloud usage and reinforce its position in the AI infrastructure market. AWS backlog article AWS revenue outlook article
• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street remains constructive. Citizens reiterated a Market Outperform rating with a $315 price target, while the cited analyst consensus includes a median target near $320. Recent earnings also showed strong momentum, with second-quarter revenue of roughly $200.6 billion, up nearly 20% year over year. Amazon analyst rating article
• Positive Sentiment: New growth initiatives add longer-term optionality. Amazon is expanding Zoox robotaxi operations and plans to broaden Prime Air drone delivery. It is also developing “Project Tetromino,” an automated delivery-station concept that could process packages 2.5 times faster, potentially improving logistics efficiency and labor economics. Zoox robotaxi article
• Neutral Sentiment: Anthropic’s expected IPO could revalue Amazon’s AI exposure. Its S-1 filing may provide investors with more information about Anthropic’s growth, valuation and Amazon’s strategic investment, but the outcome could either validate or challenge current AI-related expectations. Anthropic S-1 article
• Negative Sentiment: AI infrastructure spending is pressuring cash flow. Amazon’s free cash flow reportedly fell negative by $7.6 billion despite higher operating cash flow, reflecting the cost of its aggressive AI-capital-expenditure program. Investors remain focused on whether future AWS growth will produce adequate returns on that investment. Amazon free cash flow article
• Negative Sentiment: Hardware costs and policy risks are rising. Amazon increased prices on Echo, Fire TV, Kindle and other devices by as much as 60% because of memory shortages linked to AI data-center demand. Proposed AI advertising-disclosure rules, New York City scrutiny of delivery operations and continued competition from Walmart add further uncertainty. Amazon hardware price increase article

About Amazon.com

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.