What happened
Shares of Amazon (AMZN -1.61%) climbed 2.3% on Tuesday, following some positive notes from analysts.
So what
Barclays analyst Ross Sandler believes Amazon's stock is a buy ahead of its upcoming earnings release. Earnings season is off to a solid start with strong performances by Bank of America and Netflix. Sandler expects more of the same when Amazon reports its financial results on Oct. 27.
Sandler expects the e-commerce titan's North American retail sales to exceed Wall Street's estimates. He also anticipates a relatively solid showing from Amazon's international retail operations, despite the challenges posed by COVID-related lockdowns in China and the conflict in Europe.
Moreover, Sandler thinks investors' fears of slowing growth for the company's cloud-computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), are overblown. On Tuesday, AWS announced its plans to strengthen its cloud infrastructure network in Asia. It will invest more than $5 billion to build data centers and other technology in Thailand as part of its long-term growth initiatives in the region.
Additionally, Sandler believes Amazon's sales and profit trends could be favorable to those of other mega-cap technology companies in the coming quarters. All told, he sees the stock soaring roughly 72% to $200 per share.
Now what
Citigroup's analysts also made some bullish remarks on Amazon. The investment bank named the stock a top pick for an accelerating (or slowing) economy.
Citigroup's call makes sense, as stronger economic growth would likely boost spending on Amazon's e-commerce platform and demand for its cloud services. And while a weaker economy would certainly pose challenges, the company's ability to invest straight through the downturn could allow it to take market share from rivals that are less financially sound.
