Amazon (AMZN) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

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Amazon (AMZN) closed the most recent trading day at $1,699.19, moving +1.85% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.15%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 0.32%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.42%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the online retailer had lost 4.96% over the past month. This has lagged the Retail-Wholesale sector's loss of 0.44% and the S&P 500's loss of 1.1% in that time.

AMZN will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be February 7, 2019. On that day, AMZN is projected to report earnings of $5.48 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 153.7%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $71.61 billion, up 18.46% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $19.50 per share and revenue of $232.69 billion, which would represent changes of +328.57% and +30.82%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for AMZN. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. AMZN currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note AMZN's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 85.58. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 25.54, so we one might conclude that AMZN is trading at a premium comparatively.

It is also worth noting that AMZN currently has a PEG ratio of 3.17. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. The Internet - Commerce was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.96 at yesterday's closing price.

The Internet - Commerce industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 176, putting it in the bottom 32% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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