E-commerce giant Amazon.com kicked off its annual Prime Day sales event on Tuesday with a couple of bullish Wall Street reports. Amazon stock rose on the news.
Amazon's 48-hour Prime Day promotion began at 3 a.m. Eastern time. The Seattle-based company touted deep discounts, exclusive deals and celebrity product launches for its two-day event. Prime Day deals are available to the more than 200 million Prime subscribers in 25 countries.
Wells Fargo analyst Ken Gawrelski on Tuesday added Amazon stock to the firm's "signature picks" list. He rates AMZN stock as overweight, or buy, with a price target of 159.
Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney on Monday labeled Amazon stock as one of his "top picks" heading into the second-quarter earnings season. He rates AMZN stock as outperform with a price target of 150.
Amazon Stock Continues To Climb
On the stock market today, Amazon stock advanced 1.3% to 128.78. Year to date, Amazon is up 53%.
In a note to clients, Wells Fargo's Gawrelski said the outlook for Amazon's cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, is rising ahead of the company's second-quarter earnings report. He also expects Amazon to guide analysts higher for operating income in the current quarter.
Gawrelski predicted Prime Day revenue growth of 7% year over year.
Meanwhile, Evercore's Mahaney said, "It's now time to lean in on Amazon." In a note to clients, Mahaney cited improving business conditions in Amazon's cloud computing and e-commerce segments.
Amazon stock ranks sixth out of 59 stocks in IBD's Retail-Internet industry group, according to IBD Stock Checkup. However, it has a lackluster IBD Composite Rating of 66 out of 99.
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