The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Consumer Cyclical company by 4.54% to 719.7 million shares with purchase of 31.25 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 6.96% valued currently at $105.14 billion. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 7.63 million to 390.02 million shares. And Fidelity Management & Research Co has lifted its position by 7.01% or 17.93 million shares – to 273.79 million shares.
With over 38.14 million Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $151.94 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $5.79 billion. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 16.55% and its price on 12/29/23 lost nearly -0.94%. Currently, there are 10.24B common shares owned by the public and among those 9.07B shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 58 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for AMZN have a consensus price objective of $179.20. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $230.00 and a low of $140.00. The average price target is 15.21% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -8.53% over that period. But an upside of 33.94% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $176.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 214 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 56 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 498,077 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 158 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 4,595,068 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Amazon.com Inc. are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Fidelity 500 Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 291.06 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $42.52 billion. The company bought an additional 0.4 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.82% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 1.04 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 219.26 million shares valued at over $32.03 billion and representing 2.12% of the shares outstanding. Fidelity 500 Index Fund bought 0.84 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 105.13 million shares at a value of $15.36 billion. Fidelity 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 1.02% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) opened at $153.10, down -$0.28 from a prior closing price of $153.38. However, the script later moved the day high at 153.89, down -0.94%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -1.24% and 19.52% over the past three months. AMZN shares are trading 80.88% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 85.70% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $81.43 and touched a high of $155.63 over the same period. AMZN has an average intraday trading volume of 50.87 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 1.61%, 6.57%, and 19.21% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares accounts for 60.80% of the company’s 10.24B shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 33.64%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 9.64% and 27.33% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $1570.15B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.16. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 79.33, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $1.92. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.08% over the week and 1.85% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) will achieve an EPS of $0.79 for the current quarter, $0.68 for the next quarter and $3.6 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.57 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $1.03. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.03 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 1094.47%, and 35.89% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 58 brokerage firm advisors rate Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.17. Specifically, 49 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 1 of the 58 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the AMZN, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Needham stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on December 22, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $160-$175.