2024 is looking like it will be a good year for Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). At least, that’s what a recent analyst study of the e-commerce titan suggests. The report was good enough for investors, who gave Amazon a fractional boost in Thursday afternoon’s trading. Word from Monness, Crespi, Hardt—via analyst Brian White—noted several factors likely to work well in Amazon’s favor in 2024.
The first of these was a “leaner” cost structure, which makes sense; Amazon has long suffered from a tendency to plow virtually all its profits back into the business, which has left investors wondering when they will see an actual dividend out of it. But beyond that, Amazon is also likely to gain from its investments in artificial intelligence and cloud computing. All of these points together will likely insulate it from much of an economic downturn.
Amazon Looking to Optimize Its Online Shopping Operations
Amazon won’t just be leaning on AI and the cloud to keep it running. It’s looking to get the most out of its online shopping operations with data collection, using its personalization options to better offer insights into shopping patterns. It’s already done that to great effect with the holiday shopping season, and it will likely be able to continue that trend going forward. In a time when people buy fewer things in general, being able to sell the most you can is vital for any retail operation.
It’s also keeping things up on its streaming end, with a new planned Christmas movie ready for release in November 2024. Dubbed “Red One,” it features Chris Evans and Dwayne Johnson, and that should pull in a good slug of cash for Amazon toward the end of the year, especially since it will have a theatrical run and a streaming run.
Is Amazon a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on AMZN stock based on 43 Buys assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After an 82.54% rally in its share price over the past year, the average AMZN price target of $180.31 per share implies 17.61% upside potential.
