Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos laughs as he talks to the media while touring the new Amazon Spheres during the grand opening at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters in Seattle, Washington, January 29, 2018.
Lindsey Wasson | Reuters
A disappointing third quarter earnings report is not enough to deter Wall Street analysts from Amazon. The company reported earnings after the bell on Thursday and saw its first profit decline in more than two years which analysts attributed to big investments in shipping. The e-commerce giant also reported weak revenue guidance.
But while it may not have been what many expected from a company like Amazon, analysts are urging clients to buy the pullback in the stock.
Shares of Amazon were down as much as 9% after the earnings report but have come back some and are now down over 5% in premarket trading. The company reported earnings of $4.23 for the third quarter vs. $4.62 expected, according to analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
“Higher expenses/lower margins from faster shipping and Amazon Web Services investments further solidify AMZN’s competitive moat, in our view, and should lead to superior growth with higher margins over time,” SunTrust analyst Youssef Squali said.
“While a soft 4Q guidance is weighing on shares post close, we find it generally conservative, and continue to view AMZN as one of the most attractive assets in our coverage universe,” he wrote to clients.
The feeling was near unanimous from many other analysts.
“We remain Buy rated and we see any post-quarter share weakness as a good entry point against the long term narratives,” UBS analyst Eric Sheridan said.
Future growth and investments should pay for patient investors, according to analysts at Guggenheim.
“”Over the next 12 months and long-term, we believe Amazon will continue to benefit from strong growth in profitable segments (AWS, advertising, 3P retail, subscription revenue) and expand its leadership moat across industries (retail, with Prime’s move to 1-day shipping, and cloud computing, among others),” analyst Robert Drbul said.
“We would use any pullback in shares as an incremental buying opportunity,” he said.
Another analyst put it more succinctly.
“We’ll take the trade-off of lighter profits for higher revenue—Amazon’s earned it; We’re buying the pullback,” J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth said.
Here’s what every major analyst is saying: