Institutional Investors Shift Amazon (AMZN) Stakes as Cloud Growth Continues
Recent regulatory disclosures show institutional investors adjusting their stakes in Amazon.com, Inc. The company faces high capital expenditures alongside strong cloud revenue growth.
Several investment firms have revealed changes to their Amazon.com, Inc. holdings in third-quarter regulatory filings. Geneva Partners LLC established a new position consisting of 30,251 shares valued at approximately $7,537,000, while Leo Wealth LLC acquired 20,713 shares valued at about $5,161,000. Conversely, Loring Wolcott & Coolidge Fiduciary Advisors LLP trimmed its stake by 18,295 shares, retaining 2,230,027 shares worth $555,611,000. Flagship Harbor Advisors LLC and Deltec Asset Management LLC also reduced their positions during the quarter, selling 1,892 shares and 10,909 shares, respectively. Institutional investors and hedge funds control 72.20% of the firm's total shares.
On the executive side, corporate insiders hold 8.90% of the company's stock and have sold 71,589 shares worth $18,545,595 over the last three months. These transactions, conducted through pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, included sales by CEO Andrew R. Jassy, CEO Matthew S. Garman, CEO Douglas J. Herrington, CFO Brian Olsavsky, and SVP David Zapolsky. Most recently, Herrington sold 1,000 shares on Monday, November 2nd, at an average price of $243.47.
The portfolio adjustments follow the company's financial report released on Thursday, October 29th. For the quarter, Amazon recorded earnings per share of $1.89, falling short of the consensus analyst estimate of $1.97. Revenue climbed 12.1% year over year to $201.94 billion, compared to expectations of $202.22 billion. The business registered a net margin of 16.90% and a return on equity of 15.72%, with analysts predicting full-year earnings of 7.80 per share.
Operations have been heavily shaped by Amazon Web Services, which expanded 39.3% in the latest quarter to reach its fastest growth rate in nearly five years, alongside a reported backlog of $578 billion. Amazon also anticipates around $220 billion in 2026 capital expenditures, an infrastructure buildout that has pulled free cash flow into negative territory. Additional strategic factors involve Amazon's position as an investor and cloud provider for Anthropic, data center planning in Chile, and pending legal disputes regarding biometric privacy and Italian customs duties.
According to MarketBeat, Amazon maintains a Moderate Buy consensus rating from Wall Street, with an average price target of $321.74 across 60 analysts. The stock opened at $266.17 on Thursday, with a 50-day moving average of $254.41 and a market capitalization of $2.88 trillion.