Needham & Company LLC Reaffirms “Buy” Rating for Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Needham & Company LLC restated their buy rating on shares of Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) in a research note released on Thursday morning, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $205.00 target price on the e-commerce giant’s stock.

AMZN has been the subject of several other research reports. Canaccord Genuity Group raised their price target on Amazon.com from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. Roth Mkm reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $205.00 price target on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Tuesday. TD Cowen raised their price target on Amazon.com from $200.00 to $225.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. Monness Crespi & Hardt raised their price target on Amazon.com from $170.00 to $215.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Amazon.com from $211.00 to $217.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Monday, April 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, forty-four have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Amazon.com has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price of $202.80.

Amazon.com Trading Down 1.1 %

NASDAQ AMZN opened at $179.22 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $1.86 trillion, a PE ratio of 61.80, a PEG ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a current ratio of 1.05, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. Amazon.com has a 12 month low of $101.15 and a 12 month high of $189.77. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $177.28 and a 200-day moving average of $156.52.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 1st. The e-commerce giant reported $1.00 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.81 by $0.19. The company had revenue of $169.96 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $165.96 billion. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 16.61% and a net margin of 5.29%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.21 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Amazon.com will post 4.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Adam Selipsky sold 500 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.72, for a total transaction of $77,860.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 116,560 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $18,150,723.20. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, CEO Adam Selipsky sold 500 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.72, for a total value of $77,860.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 116,560 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $18,150,723.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Douglas J. Herrington sold 3,500 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $180.73, for a total value of $632,555.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 512,858 shares in the company, valued at $92,688,826.34. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 32,213,510 shares of company stock valued at $5,505,798,456. 12.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Amazon.com

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in AMZN. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Amazon.com by 1,869.1% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 326,727,487 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $34,701,726,000 after purchasing an additional 310,134,486 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in Amazon.com by 1,838.8% in the second quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 311,971,394 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $33,134,481,000 after purchasing an additional 295,880,050 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its holdings in Amazon.com by 1,792.4% in the second quarter. FMR LLC now owns 286,047,356 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $30,381,089,000 after purchasing an additional 270,931,640 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Amazon.com in the fourth quarter worth approximately $17,700,551,000. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Amazon.com by 120,235.9% in the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 116,480,298 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $9,784,345,000 after purchasing an additional 116,383,502 shares in the last quarter. 72.20% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Amazon.com Company Profile

Amazon.com, Inc engages in the retail sale of consumer products, advertising, and subscriptions service through online and physical stores in North America and internationally. The company operates through three segments: North America, International, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). It also manufactures and sells electronic devices, including Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TVs, Echo, Ring, Blink, and eero; and develops and produces media content.