1. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 252
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s express delivery network came in handy during COVID lockdowns, when people relied on the service to order grocery and household essentials. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is one of the best COVID stocks to buy now. On September 26, the company announced a Prime day shopping event in October, which is likely to attract more holiday shopping than the traditional Black Friday to Cyber Monday shopping period.
On September 29, Citi analyst Ronald Josey assigned a Buy rating to Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) with a $185 price target. The analyst said Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) remains his top pick with its Prime Early Access Sale ahead of the holiday season, improving Prime member engagement, consistent Web Services growth, and advancement on cost savings.
Among the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey, 252 funds reported owning stakes worth $30 billion in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) at the end of June 2022, compared to 271 funds in the prior quarter worth $48 billion. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management held a leading stake in the company, with 48.6 million shares valued at more than $5 billion.
Here is what Lakehouse Capital specifically said about Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its July 2022 investor letter:
“Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) proved resilient in the face of ongoing macro pressures and delivered a strong quarterly result along with “better-than-feared” guidance for the third quarter. Net sales increased 7% year-on-year (10% constant currency) to $121.2 billion, while operating profit declined 57% to $3.3 billion. The drop in operating profit was attributable not only to external macro factors, such as elevated shipping and fuel costs, but also lower productivity and efficiency costs as a result of some overcapacity on the back of its recent investment cycle. It was pleasing to see that the company has begun to make progress on the more controllable costs, particularly productivity and staffing, with headcount, for example, down almost 100,000 over the quarter. We continue to believe Amazon is well positioned to manage these short-term issues and remains on track to deliver significant profit improvements over the next twelve months.
Management also confirmed that they have not seen any deterioration in Prime membership growth or retention following the 17% increase in Prime fees put through earlier in the year. This is not surprising to us, as in our view, the price increase was more than justified given the tremendous amount of customer value that has been added since the last price increase was implemented back in 2018, which includes the doubling of its fulfilment network and workforce, significant expansion of free same-day delivery and considerable investments in video and music content. Ultimately, we remain positive about Amazon’s future and believe that the company’s scale and market leadership will continue to drive growth for many years to come.”
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