Amazon.com, Inc.AMZNCOMMENTMay 13, 2016Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Aug 14, 2026. Market Open.
Great earnings (21%) for a reasonable valuation (28x forward PE). PEG ratio is decent. Much more than online shopping -- e-commerce plus AWS, digital advertising, logistics, AI services, custom chips. AWS earnings have exceeded expectations, while AWS has grown 37%. Cloud business is a leader.
Spending in AI is really paying off. Tangible results through faster cloud growth, wider AI deployment, and improving profitability and logistics in fulfillment centres. One of only 5 companies to have touched $3T in market cap. No dividend.
Is a big holding of his. The CEO assures stockholders that Amazon's large invest in AI will pay off. AWS could become a trillion-dollar business now that it's using AI; it's already Amazon's most-profitable business, far more than Prime. The CEO expects returns from AI will come faster than AWS. The CEO raised capex higher, but shares still rallied, up 4.58% today.
AWS is a real earnings engine, growth accelerated to nearly 40% (fastest pace in more than 4 years). Enormous AI spending finally translating into faster cloud growth, and translating into profits faster than the competition. Headline profit was inflated by a large paper gain on its investment in Anthropic.
AWS, retail and ads all accelerated in growth while profits hit a record high with operating margins of 13.7%. AWS contributes 61% of operating income and is accelerating rapidly. Has lots of momentum. Even if you cut the backlog in half, you still see outsize growth and market share gains. It gives her confidence in the AI space for Amazon.
This, Microsoft, Google and Meta will be the distribution point of AI to wide adoption. AWS remains the dominant cloud player. OpenAI divorced from MSFT, so it could not be hosted on AWS. AWS is accelerating investments in data centres and chips, which is where the opportunity lies.
(Analysts’ price target is $315.16)He expects Amazon and Google to win the AI race. They have the money to build data centres and hire the best talent. He trims when the share price rises, and buys when the price declines. AMZN is one of the best companies in the world and is a long-term hold. Their retail and cloud (the leader) businesses are growing.
His preference is MSFT, and he'd buy today. Valuation is ~20x PE -- very fair valuation for business with good outlook for earnings growth for next 3-5 years. A bit more value than AMZN right now. Business model supports a better compounding over the long run, and generates significantly more FCF. Late to the AI race, and that's the reason for the selloff.
No issues with AMZN. Very well run, targeting new markets. You can't own all the tech companies, so you have to pick your spots.
Looking at a longer-term chart, not a huge growth rate for a company of this size with its level of market share in cloud computing. Recent pop, but he's troubled by capex spending and its issuing debt. Have to ask what's the value proposition?
If you own it, don't sell, but don't back up the truck either.
He loves this. It could definitely go upwards to $800 or higher. There are 2 components to the business. 1.) The e-commerce side which is doing spectacularly well. 2.) Their cloud business is by far and away ahead of Microsoft (MSFT-Q). Now Alphabet (GOOGL-Q) is trying to get into the game. This is really just a case of investing in hardware and the servers, and they are driving costs down and winning over so many other companies. Has a target price of $847 in 12 months. (See Top Picks.)