Please watch my new YouTube video: Lessons from Amazon

Please watch my new YouTube video: Lessons from Amazon

My one-hundredth-and-twenty-seventh YouTube video “Lessons from Amazon” went up today. In this video I’m looking at Amazon’s (AMZN) earnings report after hours on April 28. The company delivered its first quarterly loss in 7 years. The shares closed down 14.05% the next day. I think that the questions Amazon is facing are important across the economy as we emerge from a Pandemic. For example, looking at Pandemic sales trends do you invest in fulfillment and shipping infrastructure to maintain consumer expectations for quick delivery or do you hold back on spending on the likelihood that post-Pandemic trends will revert to lower pre-Pandemic patterns? Amazon’s decision to invest in building out fulfillment, and its flat sales numbers, led to this quarterly loss. Other companies such as Uber, DoorDash, Netflix, Peloton, and Starbucks face the same issues going forward.

This week is last stand for growth stock earnings hopes

This week is last stand for growth stock earnings hopes

Going into this earnings season, the hope was that strong, surprisingly strong perhaps, earnings from the big growth stocks would put a stop to the selling. Earnings would be strong enough to convince investors that the market wasn’t over-valued since at these growth rates stocks would be seen to be quick growing into current extended valuations That hasn’t exactly worked so far. But this week the earnings story from growth stocks hits its stride. If the companies reporting this week can’t make the case for growth stock earnings, there probably isn’t a growth stock story to be made in the light of Federal Reserve interest rate increases, supply chain disruptions, and fears of a recession.

Lessons from Netflix for all consumer stocks

Lessons from Netflix for all consumer stocks

In this post let me take another step back to look at the one of the larger economic forces revealed by the Netflix miss. I’d argue that the Nexflix miss should put pricing power and questions of what price increases will hurt demand up near the top of your stock picking check list. Especially since the streaming service’ loss of 200,000 subscribers this quarter and the ported loss of 2 million subscribers next quarter qualifies as just the first shoe to drop.

Stock splits are now a trend: Who’s next?

Stock splits are now a trend: Who’s next?

Two data points! We’ve got a trend! First, Alphabet (GOOG). On February 1, the company announced a 20-1 stock split. And then Amazon (AMZN). On March 9, the company announced a 20-1 stock split. As everyone knows, two data points make a trend. So now the question is Who’s next?

Selling Amazon tomorrow–worrying signs in core e-commerce business

Selling Amazon tomorrow–worrying signs in core e-commerce business

Investors have really impressed by Amazon’s fourth quarter earnings report. And there were some impressive numbers in the report for the quarter. Amazon’s cloud services unit, AWS, saw revenue growth alleviate again to a 40% growth rate. Revenue growth from from advertising did decelerate to a 32% growth rate but that’s still really impressive given what other companies have been saying about a weak ad market in the quarter. Frankly, if Amazon were just the cloud and digital advertising businesses I’d be shouting buy even if the stock is trading at a trailing 12-month price-to-earnings ratio of 49.81. But Amazon is also an e-commerce company and the numbers there didn’t look all that great.

Selling Amazon tomorrow–worrying signs in core e-commerce business

Trick or Trend: I know the consensus is that Amazon saved the market with its earnings report; I have to disagree

The story to end last week was Amazon’s (AMZN) big earnings surprise on Thursday. Fourth-quarter sales increased 9.4% to $137.4 billion. Profit was $27.75 a share, aided largely by a pretax gain from the company’s investment in Rivian, which went public in November. Analysts, on average, projected revenue of $137.8 billion and earnings of $3.77 a share. (I’d note that the $22.75 a share in earnings and the projected $3.77 are not comparable due to that huge one-time gain from the Rivian IPO.) Wall Street was especially impressed by the performance of Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud-computing division. AWS recorded sales of $17.8 billion, a 40% year-over-year increase, and operating profit of $5.29 billion. Adverting revenue for the quarter was was $9.7 billion, a 32% increase from a year earlier. Wall Street also gushed about the company’s decision to raise the price of its Amazon Prime membership by $20 a year to $139

Selling Amazon tomorrow–worrying signs in core e-commerce business

There’s damage to individual stocks–like Amazon–below the surface of this market volatility

If you look just at an index like the NASDAQ 100, an index dominated by BIG TECH, the volatility of the last month hasn’t done much damage. The index closed today December 21 at 15,986, up 3589 points. That’s almost exactly–with the difference in the decimal points–where the index stood on November 10 when it closed at 15,986. The index did drop through support at the 50-day moving average yesterday but rebounded to the upside today to clear resistance at 15,921. See nothing has happened! But you get a different picture if you look at the shares of a market leader such as Amazon (AMZN).

Apple, Amazon, Alphabet,Adobe, Applied Materials and other big techs rally hard–rest of stocks not so much

Apple, Amazon, Alphabet,Adobe, Applied Materials and other big techs rally hard–rest of stocks not so much

Today, Monday November 29, it’s a tale of two bounces from Friday’s big sell off. Technology stocks and especially big technology stocks are up big. At the close in New York Applied Materials was up 5.53%. Adobe (ADBE) was ahead 3.83%. Nvidia (NVDA) was higher by 5.95%. Amazon (AMZN) had gained 1.63%. Apple (AAPL) and Meta Platforms (AKA FB) were 2.19% and 1.47%, respectively. Qualcomm (QCOM) had gained 4.55%. Alphabet (GOOG) was higher by 2.32%. Microsoft (MSFT) had picked up 2.11%. NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) had climbed 5.41%. In most of these stocks today’s gains made up for Friday’s losses–or more. For example, on Friday Applied Materials had dropped 3.84% and NXP Semiconductors was down 3.88%. On the other hand, the “re-opening stocks” that got crushed Friday on fears that the Omicron Covid-19 variant would throw sand in the gears of the global economy showed only minor gains.