Amazon is being sued by New York’s Attorney General Letitia James over the e-commerce giant’s handling of employee safety issues around the COVID-19 pandemic at two of its warehouses, Reuters reported on Feb. 17.
According to the complaint, Amazon’s (AMZN) push for faster growth and higher profits led to its “flagrant disregard” of safety measures needed to protect its workers from the coronavirus at its warehouses in Staten Island and Queens, both located in New York City, Reuters said.
“Throughout the historic pandemic, Amazon has repeatedly and persistently failed to comply with its obligation to institute reasonable and adequate measures to protect its workers. Amazon has cut corners in complying with the particular requirements that would most jeopardize its sales volume and productivity rates,” Reuters cited parts of the lawsuit.
Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said in response to James’ lawsuit, “We care deeply about the health and safety of our employees, as demonstrated in our filing. We don’t believe the Attorney General’s filing presents an accurate picture of Amazon’s industry-leading response to the pandemic.”
Meanwhile, Amazon had filed its own lawsuit around four days back in a Brooklyn federal court to stop NY’s attorney general from suing, Reuters said. The company had also come under scrutiny in March last year when Amazon workers had complained about the working conditions at its Staten Island warehouse.
Amazon’s latest blowout earnings saw the e-commerce giant crossing the $100 billion quarterly revenue threshold for the first time. (See Amazon stock analysis on TipRanks)
Last week, Tigress Financial analyst Ivan Feinseth reiterated a Buy on the stock. Feinseth said, “During the past year, AMZN has significantly ramped up capital investment, especially in warehouse facilities and fulfillment capabilities, investing in a significant increase in administrative and engineering staff and warehousing and delivery staff. AMZN will continue to see significant growth across all of its business lines.”
The analyst added, “AMZN’s industry-leading positions in critical areas, along with its innovative ability, will further drive increasing Economic Profit that will continue to drive greater shareholder value creation.”
The rest of the Street is bullish about the stock with a Strong Buy consensus rating. That’s based on 33 unanimous Buy ratings. The average analyst price target of $4,093.06 implies about 25% upside potential to current levels.
According to the TipRanks Smart Score system, Amazon scores an 8 out of 10, indicating that the stock has a high likelihood of outperforming the market.
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Amazon’s (AMZN) latest blowout earnings saw the e-commerce giant crossing the $100 billion quarterly revenue threshold for the first time. There was growth across all business segments with several records broken in the process. The forward charge is not about to slow down anytime soon, says Tigress analyst Ivan Feinseth.
“AMZN will continue to see significant growth across all of its business lines,” the 5-star analyst said. “AMZN’s industry-leading positions in critical areas, along with its innovative ability, will further drive increasing Economic Profit that will continue to drive greater shareholder value creation. We believe significant upside exists from current levels and continue to recommend purchase.”
Feisneth has a long catalog of growth drivers.
The list should probably start off with Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services), the world’s largest cloud service provider, which Feinseth says will continue to be a “powerful growth catalyst.”
The service is constantly bringing in new customers and seeing “increasing enterprise adoption.” Some recent marquee client wins include MercadoLibre, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Standard Chartered Bank and Arm Holdings.
The service keeps adding new offerings, too.
Toward the end of last year, AWS launched the cloud-based health data analytics product Amazon HealthLake, while five new powerful machine learning services were added to AWS’s growing list of AI capabilities.
The upcoming rollout of 5G networks and the continuous rise of Edge computing, will “continue to drive further AWS growth,” Feinseth adds.
Elsewhere, the ongoing development of Alexa, smart devices, and autonomous technology, creates “investment optimality potential.”
New Alexa features, including the addition of multilingual capabilities, and the Alexa Routines features on Fire TV could further add to the 70% of market share in the smart speaker and voice home control technology segment.
Furthermore, with a monthly active user base over 50 million, AMZN’s Fire TV continues to see “accelerating momentum,” as new content gets added via deals with leading streaming providers.
The list goes on... Medical service platform Amazon Care, fulfillment services to other retailers, Amazon Pharmacy and a minority investment in EV truck maker Rivian, are just some of the other initiatives which will continue to propel Amazon forward.
Unsurprisingly, Feinseth has a Buy rating on AMZN shares, although the analyst has no fixed price target in mind. (To watch Feinseth’s track record, click here)
Feinseth’s glowing Amazon review is par for the course among Wall Street analysts. All current ratings – 32, in total - recommend the stock as a Buy. The Strong Buy consensus rating is backed by a $4,104.23 average price target, suggesting upside of 25% over the next 12 months. (See AMZN stock analysis on TipRanks)
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analyst. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.