Busey Bank Purchases 8,523 Shares of Amazon.com, Inc. $AMZN

Busey Bank grew its position in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 1.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 577,663 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock after buying an additional 8,523 shares during the quarter. Amazon.com accounts for 3.5% of Busey Bank’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 5th largest holding. Busey Bank’s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $133,336,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in AMZN. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its holdings in Amazon.com by 10.9% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 4,036,091 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $885,478,000 after purchasing an additional 397,007 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Amazon.com by 4.1% during the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 25,045 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $5,495,000 after buying an additional 986 shares in the last quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG raised its stake in shares of Amazon.com by 2.8% during the 4th quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 2,016,869 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock worth $442,481,000 after buying an additional 54,987 shares in the last quarter. Highview Capital Management LLC DE lifted its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 5.5% in the 4th quarter. Highview Capital Management LLC DE now owns 28,975 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $6,357,000 after buying an additional 1,518 shares during the period. Finally, Liberty Square Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Amazon.com in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $2,153,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 72.20% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on AMZN. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $330.00 price objective (up from $280.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Daiwa Securities Group reduced their target price on Amazon.com from $300.00 to $280.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 11th. Arete Research upped their price target on shares of Amazon.com from $285.00 to $301.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 23rd. TD Securities upgraded shares of Amazon.com to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 13th. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut shares of Amazon.com from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, January 10th. Fifty-six research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $313.09.

Amazon.com News Summary

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

• Positive Sentiment: Amazon’s latest earnings beat showed stronger-than-expected revenue and profits, while AWS growth and AI-related demand continue to support the long-term growth narrative. Amazon Over Spending on AI?
• Positive Sentiment: Amazon is opening its logistics network to outside customers through Amazon Supply Chain Services, creating a new revenue stream beyond retail and cloud. Amazon Bets Logistics Is the New Cloud
• Positive Sentiment: Amazon Pharmacy is expanding access to Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic pill through same-day delivery and kiosks, adding another growth angle in healthcare. Amazon to Carry Ozempic
• Positive Sentiment: Several analysts have raised price targets after the Q1 report, reflecting confidence that Amazon can keep compounding growth. Analyst Target Raises
• Neutral Sentiment: CEO Andy Jassy sold shares under a pre-arranged trading plan, which is notable but does not necessarily signal a change in fundamentals. Jassy Share Sale
• Neutral Sentiment: Some articles highlighted concerns about Amazon’s heavy AI and data-center spending, but investors appear willing to give the company time to convert that investment into future growth. Cash Burn Concern
• Negative Sentiment: An AWS cooling issue caused a brief outage that disrupted services at other platforms, reminding investors that cloud reliability remains a key risk for Amazon Web Services. AWS Outage

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Douglas J. Herrington sold 27,500 shares of Amazon.com stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $275.00, for a total transaction of $7,562,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 471,361 shares in the company, valued at $129,624,275. The trade was a 5.51% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Andrew R. Jassy sold 31,352 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.00, for a total value of $8,621,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,175,766 shares in the company, valued at approximately $598,335,650. The trade was a 1.42% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 191,593 shares of company stock valued at $46,289,241. 8.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Amazon.com Trading Up 0.5%

NASDAQ:AMZN opened at $272.62 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $2.93 trillion, a PE ratio of 32.61, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.97 and a beta of 1.46. The company has a quick ratio of 1.01, a current ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 52-week low of $191.16 and a 52-week high of $278.56. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $227.55 and a 200-day simple moving average of $228.72.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The e-commerce giant reported $2.78 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.63 by $1.15. Amazon.com had a net margin of 12.22% and a return on equity of 19.92%. The firm had revenue of $181.52 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $177.28 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.59 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 16.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 7.72 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Amazon.com Company Profile

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.