Lindsey Wasson | Reuters
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos laughs as he talks to the media while touring the new Amazon Spheres during the grand opening at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters in Seattle, Washington, U.S., January 29, 2018.
Macquarie was so impressed with Amazon’s “blowout” earnings, the global investment bank raised its 12-month price forecast to the highest on Wall Street and a value that would imply a record milestone for a publicly traded company.
“We believe that even without margin expansion in core retail, the other businesses can drive significant profit growth over the coming years and will make AMZN the first trillion dollar company,” wrote analyst Ben Schachter in a note to clients Friday. “As its core 1st and 3rd party retail sales continue to take significant share from virtually all competitors, its subscription business, AWS, and advertising business are all exceeding expectations markedly.”
The analyst’s new price target is $2,100, which would imply a surge of about 40 percent from Thursday’s close to a market value of $1.02 trillion. Amazon closed Thursday at $1,517.96 and was up 7 percent in premarket trading Friday to above $1,600.
Amazon said Thursday evening that revenue jumped 43 percent in the first quarter. Net income more than doubled to $1.6 billion the company said.
Schachter’s new target (up from $1,750) is the highest on Wall Street, according to TipRanks.com, which rates him as one of the top analysts in the space. He rates the stock outperform.
There’s only one thing that could stop Amazon, Schachter wrote: the government.
“Our primary concern remains regulatory risk and the growing potential for political interference,” stated the note. “AMZN’s continued success is sure to attract more attention from governments around the world than ever before.”
Amazon is currently the second-biggest company by market capitalization ($736 billion) behind Apple at $833 billion. Apple’s shares have been struggling lately, down 2.5 percent in the last one month ahead of earnings next Tuesday.
— With reporting by Morgan Brennan
Be the first to comment