Amazon hit a new high mark this morning as its stock crossed the $2,000 threshold, and analysts are predicting even bigger things for the Seattle tech giant.
Amazon’s stock has risen 68 percent since the start of the year, pushing its market cap over $985 billion, according to Yahoo Finance, in early trading Thursday. But some analysts see that number skyrocketing in the next few years.
Stanford, Conn. research firm MKM Partners last week predicted Amazon’s market cap could reach $2.5 trillion by 2024. Amazon’s leading cloud computing business, as well as a surge in its retail market share, will be the engines that get the company to that point, writes MKM’s Rob Sanderson.
Sanderson’s rosy outlook includes the prediction that Amazon Web Services will exceed $1 trillion in market cap on its own, more than the entire company is worth today. Earlier this month, Apple became the nation’s first $1 trillion public company.
Sanderson also sees Amazon capturing 14.5 percent of the retail market by that time, vaulting ahead of Walmart. Amazon has spent billions building out its distribution networks, and Sanderson sees increasing profitability from its fulfillment network and increased investment in grocery delivery.
Another factor that could boost Amazon in the eyes of investors is its burgeoning advertising business. Amazon surprised Wall Street recently when it revealed that advertising has become a “multi-billion dollar business” for the tech giant.
Not everyone is a believer in Amazon. According to a report in Bloomberg this week, investors are shorting the stocks of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google — the so-called FAANG companies — to the tune of $37 billion. That’s up 40 percent in the past year, with Bloomberg noting that Amazon is the most shorted stock of the group at $10 billion worth of short positions.
