5 Most Widely Held Stocks by Individuals

2. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 252    

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) engages in the retail sale of consumer products and subscriptions in North America and internationally. On December 28, Amazon was planning a stand-alone app for watching sports, The Information reported – part of a move to keep pushing investment toward its Prime Video streaming unit. According to the report, it’s not clear when such an app would be ready or if it will come to fruition.

On December 19, Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney maintained an Outperform rating on Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock and lowered the price target to $150 from $170, highlighting that Amazon is described as being very appealing for long-term investors while it can be considered as a dislocated high-quality stock. 

At the end of the second quarter of 2022, 252 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $30 billion in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), compared to 271 in the preceding quarter worth $48 billion.

In its Q2 2022 investor letter, Baron Funds, an asset management firm, highlighted a few stocks and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is the world’s largest retailer and cloud services, provider. Shares of Amazon declined 35% in the quarter due to weaker-than-expected profits resulting from the overcapacity of resources coming out of COVID. We expect Amazon to grow its retail capacity in the quarters to come, which would enable it to improve profitability accordingly. Amazon remains one of our largest holdings due to its durable competitive advantages with a leading position in multiple trillion-dollar markets with a long runway for growth (…read more)