Centaurus Financial Inc. Takes Position in Amazon.com, Inc. $AMZN

Centaurus Financial Inc. bought a new position in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund bought 202,669 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock, valued at approximately $44,500,000. Amazon.com accounts for 2.1% of Centaurus Financial Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 4th biggest position.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of AMZN. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Amazon.com by 2.1% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 849,721,601 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $186,420,422,000 after acquiring an additional 17,447,045 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Amazon.com by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 381,681,441 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $83,805,794,000 after acquiring an additional 7,584,156 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 1.7% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 216,717,657 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $47,332,625,000 after acquiring an additional 3,721,658 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Amazon.com during the 2nd quarter valued at $27,438,011,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp boosted its position in Amazon.com by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 97,379,134 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $18,527,354,000 after purchasing an additional 302,858 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.20% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Amazon.com

Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Big long-term upside from AWS: CEO Andy Jassy told staff he expects AI could drive AWS to roughly $600B in annual revenue by 2036 — a reiteration of AWS as the core growth/profit engine. Reuters: AWS $600B
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Wolfe Research recently raised its price target citing stronger AWS AI and data-center demand, which underpins upside for shares. Yahoo Finance: Wolfe Research
• Positive Sentiment: Product and cloud partnerships accelerating AI offerings — AWS announced deals (including a Cerebras collaboration for fast inference) and OpenAI/AWS commercial/government arrangements that expand addressable market for cloud and AI services. InsiderMonkey: Cerebras partnership
  Reuters: OpenAI-AWS gov deal
• Positive Sentiment: Faster delivery push and Prime Day timing: Amazon expanded 1‑hour/3‑hour delivery and reportedly moved Prime Day into June — both moves aim to pull demand forward, boost Q2 revenue and defend share in quick-commerce. Reuters: 1-hour delivery
  MarketBeat: Prime Day shift
• Neutral Sentiment: Capital spending and debt context: Amazon’s large bond sale and planned AI capex have analysts revising hyperscaler debt forecasts higher — supports growth but keeps focus on near-term margin/cash use. Reuters: debt forecasts
• Negative Sentiment: Legal/cloud competition risk: Reports say Microsoft is weighing legal action over a large Amazon–OpenAI cloud arrangement, creating regulatory / contract uncertainty for AWS/OpenAI deals. Reuters: Microsoft legal threat
• Negative Sentiment: Operational & headlines risk from logistics shuffle: Multiple reports that Amazon plans to sharply cut USPS volume (potentially two‑thirds) have pressured the stock amid concerns over transition costs and negative press; CNBC/WSJ coverage also shows negotiation frictions. WSJ: USPS volume cut
  CNBC: USPS talks

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts recently issued reports on AMZN shares. Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $230.00 price target on Amazon.com in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and set a $260.00 price objective (down from $300.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Stifel Nicolaus set a $300.00 target price on Amazon.com and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th. Wedbush lowered their target price on Amazon.com from $340.00 to $300.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Finally, KeyCorp set a $285.00 price target on Amazon.com in a research report on Friday, February 6th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifty-three have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $286.93.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP David Zapolsky sold 10,649 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $205.43, for a total value of $2,187,624.07. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president owned 41,190 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,461,661.70. The trade was a 20.54% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, VP Shelley Reynolds sold 2,695 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $205.90, for a total transaction of $554,900.50. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president directly owned 119,780 shares in the company, valued at $24,662,702. This represents a 2.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 71,686 shares of company stock worth $14,688,739 over the last 90 days. 9.70% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Amazon.com Stock Down 2.5%

Shares of Amazon.com stock opened at $209.87 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 0.88. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 1-year low of $161.38 and a 1-year high of $258.60. The business has a 50-day moving average of $221.35 and a 200-day moving average of $226.32. The company has a market capitalization of $2.25 trillion, a PE ratio of 29.27, a P/E/G ratio of 1.61 and a beta of 1.40.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The e-commerce giant reported $1.95 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.97 by ($0.02). Amazon.com had a net margin of 10.83% and a return on equity of 21.87%. The business had revenue of $213.39 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $211.02 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.86 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 6.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc is a diversified technology and retail company best known for its e-commerce marketplace and broad portfolio of consumer and enterprise services. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company launched as an online bookseller and expanded into a global retail platform that sells products directly to consumers and provides a marketplace for third-party sellers. Over time Amazon has grown beyond retail into areas including cloud computing, digital media, devices and logistics.

Key businesses and offerings include Amazon’s online marketplace and fulfillment services, the Amazon Prime membership program (which bundles expedited shipping with streaming and other benefits), Amazon Web Services (AWS) which supplies on-demand cloud computing and storage to businesses and public-sector customers, and a range of content and advertising services such as Prime Video and Amazon Advertising.