Wall Street Increases Amazon Targets as Shares Pop After Results
Amazon’s share price has popped after the online giant’s stellar results, and analysts are predicting further rises.
While Amazon (amzn) shares fell more than 4% during regular trading Thursday, they rose 6.2% in after-hours trading.
Analysts from Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Mizuho, J.P. Morgan, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch all raised their price targets for the company, to as much as $ 1,750 (Credit Suisse). The closing price Thursday was $ 1,390.
“While profitability is taking a step back, we believe Amazon is once again investing ahead of growth in commerce and voice search,” Mizuho said in a note, quoted by CNBC.
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That reference to profitability related to Amazon’s forecast for the first quarter of 2018, when it said operating income would be between $ 300 million and $ 1 billion, rather than the $ 1.5 billion people were expecting to see.
Profitability for the quarter Amazon just reported was another matter, with net income of $ 1.86 billion, the most it’s ever posted.
That was aided by the fact that Amazon seized around half of all e-commerce holiday season sales, which was in turn probably helped by rising numbers of Prime subscribers. Revenues from those subscription fees grew 49% to $ 3.2 billion, with over 4 million people signing up in one week alone.
Amazon Prime is set to cost 18% more under a recently-announced price hike from $ 10.99 a month to $ 12.99 a month.
