Amazon.com, Inc. Stock Downgraded By 1 Firm As Most Others Boost PT

Amazon stock soared to a new high on Friday after smashing earnings estimates Thursday night, but it’s starting to look like the party’s already over. After soaring to a new record high of $949.59, Amazon stock started descending, although it remained in the green in the afternoon, up by about 0.7% in the $925 range.

By Szk7788 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 orGFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

One analyst downgraded Amazon stock, essentially saying that yes, the party is indeed over. However, most other analysts were quick to raise their price targets and continue their votes of confidence for the online retailer.

Amazon stock to Sector Weight

Pacific Crest analyst Edward Yruma said in a note on Thursday night that this is “as good as it gets” for Amazon, and he thinks the company is running out of steam. Because Amazon stock was nearing his $961 price target, he had to decide whether to downgrade it or boost his price target, and he took the contrarian view, moving from Overweight to Sector Weight.

He said while Thursday’s earnings report was “impressive,” first-party sales growth appeared to be modifying while competition in the retail space is intensifying. Amazon’s e-commerce sales grew 16% (not including sales made on the company’s platform by third-party sellers) in the first quarter, which was flat with the fourth quarter growth rate and down from the 21% growth recorded in the year-ago quarter. He also noted that Amazon Web Services grew 43%, but that was a deceleration from the 47% growth rate in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s cloud business surged 93%, he added.

Of note, Raymond James downgraded Amazon stock earlier this week, although that was for margins rather than moderating growth.

Amazon stock is a favorite short position

The more Amazon stock has soared, the higher short interest has become, and data from financial analytics firm S3 Partners indicates that it is the fourth largest equity short in the U.S. market after only Tesla, Apple and AT&T. Needless to say, Amazon short-sellers have been getting hammered, as according to research head Ihor Dusaniwsky, they were down $935.8 million for 2017 through Thursday before the company’s earnings report, with the average short position of $4.72 billion.