Latest news with #cloudbusiness
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Analyst Says Amazon.com (AMZN) Cloud Business Needs to Show ‘Acceleration' for Stock Outperformance
Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) is one of the . Mark Mahaney, head of internet research at Evercore ISI, recently said Amazon needs to show further AWS growth for stock outperformance. 'The retail business is important for Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN). It's a necessary condition. I think for the stock to really outperform though, it will be the cloud business. You need to see acceleration in that in the back half of the year. I think we're going to see that. If we're wrong on that, the stock's not going to outperform from here. The retail business also needs to show this continued expansion in margins. And you know the—I know we've sort of waxed off and on and now we're off about tariff risk, but it's still there and you know, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) need—and Amazon's kind of the canary in the coal mine. Shoot, they may be the whole coal mine. I mean they're going to give us a read into, and we're going to be tracking pricing, for prices on products on Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and, you know, not these four days but as we go through the back half of the year and, you know, there is risk here.' AWS revenue jumped 16.9% year over year in the last reported quarter, while its operating income rose 22.6%. AWS has now surpassed a $100 billion annual run rate, playing a central role in helping businesses modernize infrastructure, reduce costs, and accelerate innovation. Ttatty / The market often overlooks Amazon's ads business, which is generating more than $10 billion in quarterly revenue despite being built from scratch. In the first quarter, ad revenue rose 19% from a year earlier to $13.9 billion, continuing to support overall profitability. According to some Wall Street estimates, Amazon is projected to earn $6.20 per share in 2025 and $8.95 in 2027, reflecting 44.4% earnings growth over two years. Lakehouse Global Growth Fund stated the following regarding Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its May 2025 investor letter: ' Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) reported a solid quarterly result with net sales up 9% year-on-year (10% in constant currency terms) to $155.7 billion and operating profit up 20% to $18.4 billion. The company's core e-commerce business remained resilient in the face of potential tariffs, with management noting they hadn't seen any material change in consumer buying behaviour as at the end of April. Amazon web services (AWS) grew 17% to $29.3 billion which was a slight deceleration from the 19% delivered last quarter. Whilst this seems disappointing at first blush, management reiterated that demand is very strong they are still capacity constrained. Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to be a key growth driver with AI workloads growing in excess of 100% year-on-year on AWS. Overall, it was a positive result, and we remain confident that the company is set to deliver many years of solid revenue growth and margin expansion.' While we acknowledge the potential of AMZN as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the . READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Analyst Says Amazon.com (AMZN) Cloud Business Needs to Show ‘Acceleration' for Stock Outperformance
Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) is one of the . Mark Mahaney, head of internet research at Evercore ISI, recently said Amazon needs to show further AWS growth for stock outperformance. 'The retail business is important for Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN). It's a necessary condition. I think for the stock to really outperform though, it will be the cloud business. You need to see acceleration in that in the back half of the year. I think we're going to see that. If we're wrong on that, the stock's not going to outperform from here. The retail business also needs to show this continued expansion in margins. And you know the—I know we've sort of waxed off and on and now we're off about tariff risk, but it's still there and you know, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) need—and Amazon's kind of the canary in the coal mine. Shoot, they may be the whole coal mine. I mean they're going to give us a read into, and we're going to be tracking pricing, for prices on products on Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and, you know, not these four days but as we go through the back half of the year and, you know, there is risk here.' AWS revenue jumped 16.9% year over year in the last reported quarter, while its operating income rose 22.6%. AWS has now surpassed a $100 billion annual run rate, playing a central role in helping businesses modernize infrastructure, reduce costs, and accelerate innovation. Ttatty / The market often overlooks Amazon's ads business, which is generating more than $10 billion in quarterly revenue despite being built from scratch. In the first quarter, ad revenue rose 19% from a year earlier to $13.9 billion, continuing to support overall profitability. According to some Wall Street estimates, Amazon is projected to earn $6.20 per share in 2025 and $8.95 in 2027, reflecting 44.4% earnings growth over two years. Lakehouse Global Growth Fund stated the following regarding Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its May 2025 investor letter: ' Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) reported a solid quarterly result with net sales up 9% year-on-year (10% in constant currency terms) to $155.7 billion and operating profit up 20% to $18.4 billion. The company's core e-commerce business remained resilient in the face of potential tariffs, with management noting they hadn't seen any material change in consumer buying behaviour as at the end of April. Amazon web services (AWS) grew 17% to $29.3 billion which was a slight deceleration from the 19% delivered last quarter. Whilst this seems disappointing at first blush, management reiterated that demand is very strong they are still capacity constrained. Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to be a key growth driver with AI workloads growing in excess of 100% year-on-year on AWS. Overall, it was a positive result, and we remain confident that the company is set to deliver many years of solid revenue growth and margin expansion.' While we acknowledge the potential of AMZN as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the . READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Battle of the Billionaires: Bill Ackman Has 14% of Pershing Square's Portfolio Invested in This Dirt Cheap "Magnificent Seven" Stock, Which Coatue Management's Philippe Laffont Thinks Is Headed for Further Pressure
Ackman holds Alphabet stock and cites the AI trend as a major catalyst for its search and cloud businesses. Laffont questions how dominant Google Search will still be in the face of competition from generative AI. Alphabet is leveraging OpenAI as a strategic partner, potentially mitigating the risks that concern Laffont. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman's approach to portfolio management is rather simple. The founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management keeps its portfolio concentrated in a small number of large-cap stocks that he buys when they are arguably trading below their intrinsic values. Coatue Management founder Philippe Laffont has a different philosophy. Coatue's portfolio boasts a number of high-growth stocks that appear poised to dominate emerging trends. One company that Ackman and Laffont seem to have different views on is "Magnificent Seven" member Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG). Let's start by exploring what drives Ackman's conviction in the megacap artificial intelligence (AI) stock. From there, I'll detail a major risk factor that Laffont recently called out for the stock. Lastly, I'll provide my own breakdown of Alphabet and whether or not the stock could be worth a look right now. Pershing Square's position in Google parent Alphabet makes up about 14% of the value of its portfolio, based on the fund's most recent 13F filing. In its latest annual investor presentation, the firm identified Alphabet as an "underappreciated" opportunity in the AI landscape. It went on to highlight new opportunities in digital advertising and cloud computing as catalysts for Alphabet that could drive accelerated revenue growth and profit margin expansion. For example, Google's search responses now highlight AI-crafted summaries. So far, this feature has shown some encouraging metrics such as higher user engagement trends among those who use the summaries. This puts Google in an advantageous position when it comes to enticing advertisers to its platform. In addition, Alphabet's cloud computing business has made meaningful investments in cybersecurity tools over the last few years. The integration of AI-powered cybersecurity services into the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a major differentiator from peers such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Moreover, it also opens the door to another enormous addressable market and provides Alphabet with more direct ways to compete with the likes of CrowdStrike and other leading cybersecurity players. Over the past year, Alphabet generated more net income than its closest cloud infrastructure peers. Yet it's trading at a forward-price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of just 18.4 -- roughly half the ratios of Amazon and Microsoft. Given Alphabet's discounted valuation and the potential value to be gained from integrating AI and cybersecurity across its vast ecosystem, I can see why the company earned a position in Pershing Square's portfolio. During a recent panel discussion on CNBC's Squawk Box, Laffont detailed his thoughts on Alphabet. The billionaire was bullish on some of its businesses, such as video platform YouTube and autonomous driving company Waymo. However, Laffont expressed concern over the outlook for Google Search. He believes that the rise of OpenAI could pose a threat to Google's search business. I completely understand Laffont's stance, and I would go as far as to say that his opinion is rooted in reality. Some search trends have already been indicating that Google is losing some of its momentum, likely due to the rise of OpenAI and competing large language models (LLMs). With that said, I'd like to call out an interesting development between Alphabet and OpenAI. The two companies recently formed a strategic partnership under which OpenAI will leverage Google Cloud's network. As Ackman's thesis shows, Alphabet has some creative ways to grow its budding cloud infrastructure business relative to the competition. Considering OpenAI's closest ally throughout the AI revolution has been Microsoft, I see the expansion of its relationship with Google Cloud as an incredibly savvy deal and potentially lucrative opportunity for Alphabet. Furthermore, if OpenAI does begin to meaningfully take business from Google Search, then Alphabet appears to have identified a new way to offset that headwind while monetizing the very company that potentially threatens it. Although I understand Laffont's view, I think the bearish sentiment surrounding Alphabet is more academic than reality. Moreover, I think the potential downside is baked into Alphabet's stock at this point, considering the steep discount and wide disparity in valuation multiples it trades at relative to its near peers (despite being the most profitable of the three). I see Alphabet stock as a dirt-cheap, no-brainer opportunity right now. Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $694,758!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $998,376!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,058% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, CrowdStrike, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Battle of the Billionaires: Bill Ackman Has 14% of Pershing Square's Portfolio Invested in This Dirt Cheap "Magnificent Seven" Stock, Which Coatue Management's Philippe Laffont Thinks Is Headed for Further Pressure was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
South China Morning Post
03-07-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Alibaba seeks US$1.5 billion from exchangeable bonds for cloud, e-commerce push
Alibaba Group Holding plans to raise HK$12 billion (US$1.5 billion) via exchangeable bonds to fund its cloud business and international e-commerce operations, the company said on Thursday. The bonds will not pay interest but will allow bondholders to exchange them for shares of its subsidiary, Alibaba Health Information Technology. 'Alibaba Group intends to use the net proceeds from the bond offering for general corporate purposes, including investments to support the development of our cloud infrastructure and international commerce businesses,' Alibaba, which also owns the Post, said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange. The zero-coupon exchangeable bonds maturing on July 9, 2032, would be sold via a private offering to non-US persons, the filing said, adding that the timing of the offering would depend on market conditions. 11:13 How is betting on AI to transform e-commerce How is betting on AI to transform e-commerce Holders of the bonds may exchange all or any portion of the bonds at any time after 41 days from issuance until five days before their maturity date. The exchange price will be determined at the time of bond pricing.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Watch These Oracle Price Levels as Stock Hits All-Time High on Cloud Business Optimism
Oracle shares closed at a record high on Monday after CEO Safra Catz disclosed bullish new developments about the enterprise software giant's cloud business. The stock consolidated within a rectangle before staging a volume-backed breakout in Monday's trading session, signaling a continuation of the stock's strong uptrend. A measured move, which calculates the distance of the impulsive move higher that preceded the rectangle and adds that amount to the pattern's breakout point, projects an upside target of $280. Investors should watch key support levels on Oracle's chart around $203, $190 and $ (ORCL) closed at a record high on Monday after CEO Safra Catz disclosed bullish new developments about the enterprise software giant's cloud business. In a regulatory filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Catz said the company's MultiCloud database revenue continues to grow at over 100%, adding that the company had signed multiple large cloud services agreements, including one that is expected to contribute more than $30 billion in annual revenue starting in FY28. Oracle shares surged 56% in the second quarter and have gained 31% since the start of the year, due in part to bullish projections about the company's cloud infrastructure growth as companies ramp up AI spending. The stock rose 4% to $218.63 in Monday's session. Below, we take a closer look at the technicals on Oracle's chart and identify key price levels to watch. Oracle shares consolidated within a rectangle before staging a volume-backed breakout in Monday's trading session, signaling a continuation of the stock's strong uptrend. Monday's jump coincided with the relative strength index finding support near the indicator's overbought threshold, highlighting the stock's recent bullish momentum, though the price did close toward the low of Monday's trading range. It's also worth pointing out that the 50-day moving average (MA) crossed above the 200-day MA to form a golden cross, a chart signal that predicts the start of a new move higher. Let's use technical analysis to project a potential upside target on Oracle's chart and also identify key support levels worth watching during potential profit-taking in the stock. Investors can project an upside target in the stock by using the measured move technique, also known by chart watchers as the measuring principle. When applying the method to Oracle's chart, we calculate the distance of the impulsive move higher that preceded the rectangle and add that amount to the pattern's breakout point. For instance, we add $63 to $217, which projects a target of $280. The first lower level to watch sits around $203. A failed breakout attempt could see a retracement to this area, which may provide support near the rectangle pattern's lower trendline. Further selling could trigger a fall to $190. The shares may attract buying interest in this location near the low of a breakaway gap in mid-June and several closely aligned peaks that formed on the chart between November and January. Finally, a deeper correction in Oracle shares could see the price revisit lower support at $168. Investors may decide to place buy orders in this region near the golden cross pattern and a horizontal line that links a range of corresponding trading activity on the chart stretching back to last September. The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed on Investopedia are for informational purposes only. Read our warranty and liability disclaimer for more info. As of the date this article was written, the author does not own any of the above securities. Read the original article on Investopedia
