Nasdaq AMZN Amazon

FAANG stocks [Meta Platforms ( NASDAQ:META ), previously called Facebook, Amazon ( NASDAQ:AMZN ), Apple ( NASDAQ:AAPL ), Netflix ( NASDAQ:NFLX ), and Google’s parent company Alphabet ( NASDAQ:GOOGL ,  GOOG )] have outperformed the S&P 500 ( SPX ) so far in 2023, with META rallying over 160%. However, macroeconomic uncertainty continues to be a drag. We used  TipRanks’ Stock Comparison Tool to pit Meta, Amazon, and Apple against each other to pick Wall Street’s favorite FAANG stock at current levels. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Shares of social media giant Meta Platforms have been enjoying a splendid run this year, fueled by the company’s better-than-anticipated performance in the first half of the year. Last month, the company not only beat analysts’ second-quarter estimates but also issued upbeat guidance for the third quarter. Meta’s Q2 2023 revenue grew by 11% to $32 billion, marking the first time the company generated double-digit growth since the end of 2021. The company’s top line has been under pressure in recent quarters due to the impact of macro pressures on digital ad spending, growing competition, and Apple’s iOS privacy change, which limited ad-targeting capabilities. Despite these pressures, Meta has bounced back strongly much to the delight of investors. Moreover, the company has been taking aggressive cost control and streamlining measures to improve its profitability. In Q2 2023, the company’s EPS grew 21% to $2.98.          Is Meta a Good Stock to Buy? On Monday, UBS analyst Lloyd Walmsley maintained a Buy rating on Meta with a price target of $400. The analyst expects the company to introduce generative artificial intelligence (AI) consumer chatbots across its WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook apps by the end of next month at the Meta Connect event. Walmsley believes that a consumer chatbot launch would enable Meta to win market share in the nearly $200 billion search ads market. He projects the revenue opportunity from chatbot search ads of $7.5 billion for the Facebook app alone and potentially over $20 billion across Meta’s Family of Apps. Walmsley concluded that Meta remains one of his favorite names in the internet sector, backed by several top-line catalysts like persistent growth in engagement, Reels monetization, click-to-message ads expansion, Shop Ads rollout, and Twitter-rival Threads. Wall Street’s Strong Buy consensus rating on Meta stock is based on 39 Buys and two Holds. The average price target of $377.70 implies 19.3% upside. Meta shares skyrocketed 163% so far in 2023. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) E-commerce and cloud computing giant Amazon impressed Wall Street with its market-crushing second-quarter performance. The company’s cost-cutting efforts and higher sales helped it swing to EPS of $0.65 from a loss per share of $0.20 in the prior-year quarter. Amazon’s Q2 2023 sales grew about 11% year-over-year to $134.4 billion, driven by an 11% and 10% rise in North America and International retail sales, respectively. Further, sales from the company’s Amazon Web Services cloud business increased 12%. The company also issued a better-than-anticipated third-quarter revenue outlook.  To continue to support its growth strategies, Amazon expects capital expenditure of slightly more than $50 billion in 2023 compared to $59 billion in 2022. While the company projects its fulfillment and transportation expenditure to be down this year, it expects higher infrastructure spending to support AWS growth, including additional investments related to generative AI and large language model initiatives. Is Amazon a Buy, Hold, or Sell? Last week, Barclays analyst Ross Sandler increased the price target for Amazon stock to $180 from $140 and reaffirmed the Buy rating on the stock. The analyst noted that after two years of immense trouble for Amazon bulls, the company is now back with market share gains and improved margins. Sandler believes that AWS is likely re-accelerating on regular and AI workloads and retail growth is steady. He also thinks that margins may cross the 2018 peak. With 37 Buys and one Hold, Amazon scores a Strong Buy consensus rating. At $171.08, the average price target implies 20.3% upside. Shares have jumped over 69% since the start of this year. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Apple shares have been declining since the company announced a disappointing fiscal fourth-quarter revenue outlook. The iPhone maker managed to beat analysts’ expectations for Q3 FY23 (June quarter), thanks to the 8.8% rise in Services revenue to $21.2 billion. However, overall revenue declined 1.4% year-over-year to $81.8 billion due to lower iPhone, Mac, and iPad revenues. Moreover, the company cautioned investors about a fourth consecutive year of revenue decline by saying that it expects the September quarter top-line performance to be similar to the June quarter. In particular, Apple expects iPhone and Services business to accelerate on a year-over-year basis compared to the June quarter. That said, the company anticipates Mac and iPad revenues to decline by double digits due to tough comparisons.    What is Apple’s Price Target? While several analysts remain optimistic about Apple, Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett downgraded the stock to Hold from Buy with a price target of $198 last week. Crockett stated that Apple’s Q3 FY23 performance highlights the slowdown phase in which it exists currently. He feels that a slowdown in the U.S. could last until a material new product category captures the market. Given the uncertainty associated with the timing and success of a new product category, the analyst does not find the stock attractive currently due to its peak absolute and relative valuation multiples. Wall Street’s Strong Buy consensus rating for Apple stock is based on 22 Buys and seven Holds. The average price target of $208.99 implies about 17% upside potential. Shares have risen 38% year-to-date. Conclusion Despite macro pressures, Wall Street is highly bullish on Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Apple and believes in their ability to drive long-term growth. Currently, they see slightly higher upside potential in Meta and Amazon than Apple. Disclosure

Below is Validea's guru fundamental report for AMAZON.COM, INC. (AMZN). Of the 22 guru strategies we follow, AMZN rates highest using our P/B Growth Investor model based on the published strategy of Partha Mohanram. This growth model looks for low book-to-market stocks that exhi

Wall Street delivered downbeat performances last week with the S&P 500 losing 2.3%, the Dow Jones retreating 1.1%, the Nasdaq Composite falling 2.9% and the Russell 2000 dropping 1.2% (read: Time for Value ETFs as Buffett Indi

Investors are understandably fascinated by the so-called "Magnificent Seven" stocks, a group of megacap companies that have created tremendous wealth for shareholders.

For Immediate ReleaseChicago, IL – August 8, 2023 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the fina

When it comes to building a business, investors, advisors, and board members may warn founders of growing too quickly. While this sounds a little convoluted, the root of the argument is that before a company explores developing a new product or pursuing additional end markets, it

The wheel. The printing press. Electricity. The computer. The internet. Those are some of the biggest technological advancements in human history. Now we're seeing another blossom right in front of our eyes: artificial intelligence (AI).

Amazon’s stock (NASDAQ: AMZN) has gained approximately 53% YTD as compared to a 17% rise in the S&P500 index over the same period. However, at its current price of $129, the stock is trading 11% below  its fair value of $144 – Trefis’ estimate for Amazo

Fintel reports that on August 7, 2023, Barclays maintained coverage of Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) with a Overweight recommendation. Analyst Price Forecast Suggests 5.44% Upside

Amazon's strong quarterly results are one more sign that Americans are still shopping, despite months of ominous economic indicators, and could be a positive signal for Walmart and Target, who report next week.

Monday, August 7, 2023The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 16 major stocks, including Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), Netflix, Inc. (NFLX)

Now that mega-cap tech companies have reported their latest quarterly results, which stock stands out as the top pick for investors - Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, or Alphabet?

Amazon.com is set to meet next week with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ahead of a potential long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against the retailer, according to a source familiar with the matter.

What happened Shares of iRobot (NASDAQ: IRBT) fell 11.6% in July, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is trying to acquire the maker of Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners and other household robots. Nearly one year after the original merger an

Amazon.com is set to meet next week with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ahead of a potential long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against the retailer, according to a source familiar with the matter.

On August 7, 2023 at 10:28:48 ET an unusually large $1,535.00K block of Put contracts in Amazon.com (AMZN) was bought, with a strike price of $117.50 / share, expiring in 319 day(s) (on June 21, 2024). Fintel tracks all large options trades, and the premium spent on this trade w

Wall Street climbed higher on Monday following a choppy week, with investors looking ahead to a highly awaited U.S. inflation report due later in the week that could test the market's sharp recovery this year.

U.S. stocks closed lower on Friday, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 recording their fourth straight session of losses and notching their worst weeks since March as investors digested July jobs data and the latest corporate earning

Last week’s market losses aside, there are reasons for an upbeat outlook through the second half of this year. The good news centers around several factors, including the recent positive surprises in the earnings season and a boom in AI tech. On the macro level, stocks are doing well. After last year’s deep losses, the S&P 500 is up 17% year-to-date and the NASDAQ has gained almost 33%. The markets would seem to have plenty of slack to absorb an off day, at present. Looking at earnings, we find that some 80% of the S&P-listed firms have reported. While overall earnings are down – by about 7%, marking the third straight quarter of declining profits – the ‘surprises’ have been mostly to the upside. Some 79% of reporting companies are beating expectations on earnings, a metric that indicates underlying strength. And finally, we get to AI and tech. A narrow base of tech stocks are supporting the markets right now, and they in turn are finding support from investor enthusiasm over AI. Ever since OpenAI launched its ChatGPT chatbot last November, AI has been on every tech  investor’s mind. The technology is in the early stages of release, but shows signs of becoming truly disruptive, in everything from online searching and advertising to IoT and autonomous vehicles. There’s good reason for investors to move toward AI. So it’s logical, now, to look under the hood at a couple of tech leaders. Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett had done just that, digging deep into Amazon and Apple to gauge their attraction for investors. His conclusions are interesting, and worth a second look. Amazon ( AMZN ) First up is Amazon, the world leader in e-commerce and, with its $1.4 trillion market cap, the world’s fourth-largest publicly traded company. Amazon has been generating interest with its moves into generative AI – while the company is a relative latecomer to the AI bandwagon, it has the resources and tech savvy to make swift advances. In recent months, Amazon has unveiled an AI chatbot and image builder, Bedrock, as well as CodeWhisperer, an AI-driven software code development tool. The company is also making a strong move into the hardware segment of AI, announcing its development and release of two new silicon semiconductor chips to rival the industry leader, Nvidia. Nvidia currently holds some 90% market share in the AI processing chip market, but that dominance opens up an opportunity for the competition. A competitor can shoulder its way in with a high-quality product at a significantly lower price point – just the route Amazon is trying to take with its Inferentia and Trainium chips. Finally, Amazon gets plenty of investor attention for its ability to generate returns. The company, as noted, is one of the handful of $1 trillion-plus firms, and the shares are up some 63% year-to-date. More importantly, Amazon’s shares spiked on Friday, on a weak day for the markets, on the back of an excellent 2Q23 earnings report. The top line showed total revenues of $134.4 billion, for an 11% gain year-over-year – and beating the forecast by just over $3 billion. At the bottom line, Amazon reported earnings per share of 65 cents, a figure that was 31 cents per share better than had been expected. Shares in Amazon spiked 8% after the earnings release. Turning to analyst Crockett’s view, we find him upbeat on Amazon, seeing the company holding a strong position to benefit from consumer spending going forward and finding current support from its solid base of AI products. Accordingly, Crockett bumped up his rating on Amazon from Neutral to Buy, and wrote of the stock, “Our past concerns -- that consensus views were too optimistic -- have abated. As the business resets, with efficiency a new focus for retail, and AI an emerging driver in cloud, the risk of impending economic headwinds looks less worrying, opening the door to higher multiple consumer growth stories.” In addition to his upgraded Buy rating, Crockett increased the price target from $111 to $184, implying a one-year upside potential of 32%. (To watch Crockett’s track record, click here .) The stock market’s giants have always attracted plenty of attention from the Wall Street analysts, and Amazon has 38 recent reviews on file – with a 37 to 1 breakdown of Buys over Holds, giving the stock a Strong Buy consensus rating. The shares are priced at $139.57, and their current $170.41 average price target suggests that they will gain 22% in the year ahead. (See Amazon’s stock forecast.) Apple ( AAPL ) Next up is Apple, the maker of the iconic iPhone, iPad, and MacBook lines. Apple has built long-term success on marketing lines of high-end tech products, but its thriving ecosystem also includes its highly successful Services segment that includes Apple Pay, Apple TV+, and Apple Music, amongst other offerings. Apple is also making use of AI technology – and in-line with its history, the company is taking a creative approach to the field. Rather than try to build new AI systems, Apple this past June released a number of new software features that make use of AI to create a more seamless user experience. The company is integrating a AI-powered language model into the autocorrect feature of the iPhone line, so that the smartphone will learn how to correct its own user – by how that user types. Also, Apple is working AI into the AirPods; the Pro model of the popular earbuds will recognize when wearers are engaged in a conversation, and turn off the noise-canceling feature. Finally, investors have long recognized that Apple is a long-term play, a consumer giant that has proven to be recession-resistant. In a recent example of the company’s resilience, wee can look at PC shipments during 2Q23. Overall, customers retrenched during the quarter, and shipments of PCs were down 13% y/y – but Apple’s MacBooks saw a 10% y/y quarterly gain in shipments. While Apple continues its long-term trend of delivering return on investment, solid profits, and popular consumer products, the company’s stock fell 5% after its earnings release for fiscal 3Q23 due to concerns over hardware sales. While the iPhone gained market share, the device’s overall sales were still down y/y, from $40.67 billion to $39.67 billion. All told, the company recorded its third straight quarter of dwindling sales, dialing in total revenues of $81.8 billion, slipping 1.4% y/y although the figure met Street expectations. Apple’s earnings figure, of $1.26 per diluted share, was 7 cents ahead of the forecasts but that wasn’t enough to stave off the bears. Checking in again with Barton Crockett, we find the analyst is also somewhat pessimistic on Apple, at least for the near-term. Crockett has shifted his stance, noting that Apple’s long upward trend has put it at a peak valuation, and that it’s simply not possible to predict future successful products. “After a mixed F3Q23 that highlights the slowdown phase in which Apple now sits, we downgrade the stock to NEUTRAL from BUY... Apple makes the most important device of the modern economy -- the iPhone -- has executed an impressive upgrade to Macs with the pivot to Apple Silicon, and is re-accelerating services. But a slowdown in the U.S. seems likely to last until a material new product category takes hold. And that is uncertain both in timing and success, leaving little reason to favor shares now trading near peak absolute and relative multiples,” Crockett says of the stock, in his recent note. While the rating has been downgraded, Crockett’s price target for Apple, $198, indicates his belief in a 9% upside over the next 12 months. Like Amazon, Apple has attracted plenty of Wall Street attention. The stock has 29 recent reviews, favoring Buys over Holds by 22 to 7 for a Strong Buy consensus rating. The shares have an average price target of $208.99, suggesting a 15% y/y gain from the current $181.99 trading price. (See Apple’s stock forecast.) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’   Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

In this video, I will talk about Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) second-quarter earnings report and touch on a couple of important points that were mentioned during the earnings call.