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Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Better Growth Stock to Buy Right Now: Amazon or Alibaba?
Key Points Alibaba's stock is outperforming Amazon's this year, but Amazon's revenue and earnings growth are stronger. Both Amazon and Alibaba should have strong growth prospects. Alibaba is the clear winner when it comes to valuation. 10 stocks we like better than Alibaba Group › When a company is compared to Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), it's usually a compliment. I suspect, therefore, that the executives running Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE: BABA) don't mind it too much when their company is called the "Amazon of China." Amazon's and Alibaba's businesses are remarkably similar. Both operate e-commerce platforms that dominate their target markets. Both are leading cloud service providers and have invested heavily in artificial intelligence (AI). Each of the two companies has expanded into digital entertainment and healthcare as well. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue » The comparisons don't hold up as well when it comes to stock performance, though. Amazon has delivered a jaw-dropping return of over 226,000% since its initial public offering (IPO) in 1997. Since Alibaba's IPO in 2014, its stock has risen by only around 30%. But which of these two growth stocks is the better pick right now? Here's how Amazon and Alibaba stack up against each other. Current growth While Amazon's stock performance has trounced Alibaba's over the long term, it's a different story more recently. So far in 2025, Alibaba's American depositary receipts have soared close to 50% while Amazon is barely in positive territory. However, Amazon is growing faster than Alibaba in at least one way. In the second quarter of 2025, Amazon's net sales jumped 13% year over year. Alibaba's revenue in its latest reported quarter increased by 7% year over year. It was a similar story on the two companies' bottom lines. Amazon's net income soared 35% year over year, while Alibaba's adjusted earnings grew by 22%. Granted, Alibaba's earnings based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) skyrocketed by 13 times. However, this increase was primarily due to mark-to-market changes from its equity investments. Growth prospects The more important question is how much Amazon and Alibaba will continue to grow in the future. What is Wall Street's take? The consensus revenue growth estimate for Amazon next year is nearly 10%, compared to 8.3% for Alibaba, according to LSEG. But analysts are more optimistic about Alibaba's earnings growth. The average estimate of the 29 analysts surveyed by LSEG is for the Chinese company to increase its earnings per share by roughly 20% next year. The average estimate of the 61 analysts surveyed by LSEG that cover Amazon is for the e-commerce and cloud services giant to grow its EPS by around 14.8%. Looking beyond one year is more difficult. Both Amazon and Alibaba should have strong AI tailwinds that help their cloud businesses. However, both companies also face intense competition from rivals with deep pockets. Probably the biggest wild card is how the Chinese government's actions might impact Alibaba's growth. Valuation There's not much of a contest between these two growth stocks when it comes to valuation. Alibaba wins hands down. Amazon's shares trade at a lofty forward price-to-earnings ratio of 33.4. Alibaba's forward earnings multiple is only 14.3. The Chinese tech giant also looks more attractive than Amazon in valuation metrics based on sales and book value. What if growth is factored into the equation? Alibaba still comes out on top. Its price-to-earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio based on analysts' five-year earnings growth projections is 1.28, versus 2.57 for Amazon. Better growth stock? Which is the better growth stock -- Amazon or Alibaba? I have a nuanced answer. If you're a more risk-averse investor, Amazon is probably the better pick. The company doesn't face the uncertainty related to potential Chinese government interference that Alibaba does. On the other hand, if your investing style is more aggressive, I think Alibaba is the better growth stock for you. Its growth drivers are similar to Amazon's, but its valuation is much more appealing. I like Amazon's prospects, but I suspect Alibaba has even more room to run over the next decade. Should you invest $1,000 in Alibaba Group right now? Before you buy stock in Alibaba Group, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Alibaba Group 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 $649,544!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,113,059!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,062% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 185% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 13, 2025
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
CoreWeave Is In a Hypergrowth Phase. How Should You Play CRWV Stock Here?
CoreWeave (CRWV) is in a hypergrowth phase, thanks to the significant demand for its artificial intelligence (AI) cloud services. The company runs a network of purpose-built data centers across the U.S. and Europe, stocked with top-tier GPUs, CPUs, high-speed networking systems, and vast storage. All of these are essential infrastructure for hyperscalers and large enterprises. Beyond hardware, CoreWeave has developed proprietary software and services, creating a full-stack platform tailored for next-generation AI applications. The solid demand for its AI infrastructure is reflected in its share price and financials. Since going public at $40 a share, CoreWeave's stock has nearly tripled. This rally shows the company's solid growth. For instance, CoreWeave's revenue for the first time has crossed the $1 billion mark as the company reported $1.21 billion in revenue, up 207% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA jumped to $753.2 million from $249.8 million a year ago, while adjusted operating income more than doubled to $199.8 million from $85.4 million. More News from Barchart Why This Cannabis Penny Stock Could Be Wall Street's Next Meme Trade Breakout Apple Stock Is Gaining Momentum, Is AAPL Stock a Buy? Peter Thiel-Backed Bullish Is About to IPO. Should You Buy BLSH Stock? Tired of missing midday reversals? The FREE Barchart Brief newsletter keeps you in the know. Sign up now! Looking ahead, management expects third-quarter revenue between $1.26 billion and $1.30 billion, slightly above Wall Street's expectations. Further, for the second consecutive quarter, it raised its 2025 revenue outlook. CRWV's management now projects $5.15 billion to $5.35 billion in revenue, up from its prior forecast of $4.9 billion to $5.1 billion. The optimism stems from significantly high customer demand, growing infrastructure capacity, and a robust backlog of orders. Despite the stellar numbers and upbeat guidance, CoreWeave's stock tumbled 20.8% on Aug. 13, immediately following the Q2 report. The market's negative reaction and a sharp drop to a solid quarter and upbeat outlook indicate caution, at least in the short term. Here's Why CRWV Stock Dropped Post Q2 While CoreWeave is firing on all cylinders and poised to deliver significant growth, the stock could remain highly volatile in the near term. A key reason is the upcoming expiration of the post-IPO lock-up period, which ends today, Aug. 14. This will allow early investors and insiders to sell shares. This move often stirs short-term volatility. Adding to the uncertainty is CoreWeave's pending acquisition of Core Scientific (CORZ). The market is expecting that the deal could lead to share dilution. At the same time, CoreWeave is rapidly expanding its infrastructure, bringing significant new capacity online. This growth push requires upfront spending before the related revenue starts flowing in, which can pressure margins in the short term. Should You Buy CoreWeave Stock Right Now? CoreWeave's long-term growth story remains compelling. It is rapidly scaling operations to meet surging demand from a diverse customer base, with plans to deliver more than 900 megawatts of active power by year-end. This expansion is supported by strong order growth and an expanding client base, positioning CoreWeave for a multiyear runway of growth. At the close of the second quarter, CoreWeave reported a contracted backlog of $30.1 billion, a $4 billion jump from the previous quarter and twice the amount recorded at the start of the year. This backlog includes a $4 billion expansion deal with OpenAI as well as new partnerships with both large enterprises and promising AI start-ups. Notably, CoreWeave has also signed expansion contracts with both of its hyperscale customers in just the past two months. Its pipeline remains strong and increasingly diverse, spanning various industries. The company is also seeing notable traction in its backbone and networking services. One of the largest AI labs is now leveraging CoreWeave's infrastructure to connect a multi-cloud inference system. With a robust product roadmap, the company plans to roll out additional cloud services and capabilities over the coming months, which will likely accelerate its growth. CoreWeave has also been diversifying its funding sources to lower its cost of capital, which augurs well for growth. Further, its strategic acquisitions, including Weights & Biases and the pending purchase of Core Scientific, are set to strengthen its infrastructure and operational efficiency, allowing it to scale faster while advancing its product offerings. Taken together, CoreWeave's purpose-built AI cloud infrastructure makes it a go-to platform for customers across the spectrum, and its long-term growth case looks solid. That said, the road ahead is unlikely to be perfectly smooth. Investors should expect some short-term volatility. Wall Street remains cautious, with analysts maintaining a 'Hold' consensus on CRWV. This implies that investors should show patience, waiting for the stock to stabilize before buying. On the date of publication, Amit Singh did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on 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
Zawya
a day ago
- Business
- Zawya
Cyberark achieves Cloud Service Provider security standard certification from DESC
Dubai, UAE – CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR), the global leader in identity security, today announced that it has received Cloud Service Provider (CSP) certification from Dubai Electronic Security Center (DESC). This certification means that CyberArk has demonstrated compliance with the security standards required to be able to provide secure cloud services to the Dubai government and semi-government entities at this time. CyberArk continues to expand its portfolio of global certifications as part of a broader strategy to strengthen collaboration with governments worldwide and support their evolving cybersecurity mandates. This latest certification marks a significant step in the company's continued growth within the UAE. The CSP security standard is an essential part of DESC's initiative to strengthen cybersecurity across Dubai and is based on internationally recognized frameworks, such as ISO/IEC 27001. By meeting the stringent requirements of this standard, CyberArk is now able to offer SaaS identity security products to government organizations while helping to ensure that they meet local data protection and cybersecurity laws. As these organizations generate and handle growing volumes of sensitive data, they are prime targets for cyberattacks, making cloud security essential to safeguard their systems. 'Achieving the Cloud Service Provider Security Standard from DESC is a key step for public sector customers aiming to select CyberArk to secure their digital assets,' said Eduarda Camacho, Chief Operating Officer at CyberArk. 'This certification assures organizations in Dubai and across the UAE that CyberArk's cloud security services are recognized by the Government of Dubai as meeting security and compliance standards. As the emirate continues its digital transformation, CyberArk will help provide the secure, zero-trust based foundation organizations need to modernize and migrate to the cloud.' Obtaining CSP certification builds on the 2024 launch of UAE-based SaaS products from the CyberArk Identity Security Platform. It is another marker of CyberArk's ongoing commitment to developing solutions that meet the specific needs of customers around the world, enabling organizations to adopt CyberArk's AI-powered identity security platform while complying with data sovereignty requirements. The certification covers a range of cloud-based CyberArk products, which allow organizations to apply the right level of privilege controls to all identities, human and machine: CyberArk Privilege Cloud secures privileged access for IT and cloud ops teams, discovering roles and accounts and securing their use, for measurable risk reduction over time. CyberArk applies controls within native IT tooling, with unified support for vaulted credentials and Zero Standing Privileges across shared and federated access models. Identity Administration is the centralized user management function of CyberArk Identity Security Platform Shared Services, providing a single interface for provisioning users and setting up authentication for users of the Shared Services platform. Secure Infrastructure Access (SIA) is a non-intrusive, agentless SaaS solution that isolates and monitors privileged sessions to organizational assets wherever they are located. CyberArk's commitment to security and compliance is underscored by its work to meet industry certifications including FIDO2, ACN, SOC 2 Type 2 and SOC 3 and FedRAMP®. These certifications validate CyberArk's adherence to best practices in security, privacy, and governance, providing customers with the assurance that sensitive data and digital assets are protected by leading identity security solutions. About CyberArk CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR) is the global leader in identity security, trusted by organizations around the world to secure human and machine identities in the modern enterprise. CyberArk's AI-powered Identity Security Platform applies intelligent privilege controls to every identity with continuous threat prevention, detection and response across the identity lifecycle. With CyberArk, organizations can reduce operational and security risks by enabling zero trust and least privilege with complete visibility, empowering all users and identities, including workforce, IT, developers and machines, to securely access any resource, located anywhere, from everywhere. Learn more at Media contact Amina Wasim Wallis PR
Wall Street Journal
a day ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
CoreWeave Rode the AI Boom. Can It Pass a Crucial Test of Investor Enthusiasm?
CoreWeave CRWV -20.83%decrease; red down pointing triangle is about to find out just how much the forces of supply and demand will keep breaking in its favor. The provider of artificial-intelligence cloud services has done pretty well by them so far. The company just posted $1.2 billion in revenue for the second quarter—more than triple what it generated in the same period a year earlier. That is due to booming demand for AI workloads that the company's data centers are specially designed to provide. Those data centers are loaded with Nvidia's NVDA -0.86%decrease; red down pointing triangle chips, including the latest, hard-to-come-by Blackwell line.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Prediction: This Unstoppable Stock Will Join Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple in the $3 Trillion Club Before 2028
Key Points Artificial intelligence (AI) is driving demand for Amazon's cloud services. The company's digital advertising has become the company's fastest-growing segment. Even Wall Street's modest growth targets will earn Amazon a spot among the tech elite in short order. 10 stocks we like better than Amazon › The primary growth drivers of the U.S. economy have shifted in recent decades. Twenty years ago, the largest companies in the land hailed from the oil and industrial industries. For example, in 2005, the largest companies in the U.S., measured by market cap, were ExxonMobil and General Electric, worth $392 billion and $375 billion, respectively. Now, two decades later, technology enterprises, particularly those involved in artificial intelligence (AI), are at the top of the charts. Three of the world's most recognizable companies are at the forefront. AI chipmaker Nvidia leads the field at $4.3 trillion, within striking distance of a new all-time high. Software and cloud purveyor Microsoft also appears poised to climb to new heights, recently climbing to $3.9 trillion. Rounding out this tech trifecta is iPhone maker Apple at $3.1 trillion. With a market cap of $2.3 trillion, it might seem a bit premature to predict Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) admission. After all, fair-weather investors have fled, and the stock is flat so far this year, weighed down by tariff-related uncertainty. However, other segments of Amazon's business appear poised to spark a renaissance in the company's growth, securing its membership in the $3 trillion club. The tariff conundrum The Trump administration's tariff policies remain in flux, and the resulting uncertainty is weighing on Amazon's stock. That's easy to understand, as third-party merchants generate roughly 62% of unit sales, and many of these goods are sourced from China. A recent deal set a minimum levy of 30% on Chinese imports, while some products are saddled with a higher rate. The recent trade agreement notwithstanding, investors are wary of the ongoing impact on Amazon's e-commerce sales. Results from the second quarter and Amazon's forecast seemed to confirm their worst fears. Overall net sales increased 13% year over year to $167.7 billion, with 61% of its revenue from digital sales or third-party seller services. The company's third-quarter outlook is telling. While Amazon is forecasting revenue growth of 11.5% at the midpoint of its guidance, it expects operating income to be essentially flat, in no small part thanks to tariffs. Partly cloudy The good news is that its cloud computing segment, Amazon Web Services (AWS), won't be directly affected by tariffs. For context, AWS generated 19% of Amazon's revenue and 58% of operating income so far this year, helping insulate the company somewhat from tariffs. Furthermore, AWS is the worldwide leader in cloud infrastructure services, with a market share of 32% in Q1, according to market analyst Canalys. Furthermore, the segment is growing at a respectable pace, with sales of $31 billion representing a roughly 18% increase. Growth has reaccelerated over the past year, driven by rising demand for AI. In June, CEO Andy Jassy pulled back the curtain, revealing that Amazon had more than 1,000 generative AI services and apps in development or already built, and the company plans to create many more. "AI will be a substantial catalyst," Jassy said. Amazon's cloud customers represent a captive audience and target market for its AI products and services, which will be a catalyst for future growth. A distinct "ad"vantage Another area fueling Amazon's growth is advertising, which is by far the company's fastest-growing segment. Ad revenue grew 23% year over year to $15.7 billion in Q2, and now accounts for more than 9% of total revenue. Its growth has expanded beyond in-search advertising, driven by Amazon Prime, live sports programming, Fire TV, and Twitch -- the company's live-streaming gaming platform. Amazon also recently inked deals with Roku and Disney to drive future growth. The company now reaches more than 80% of connected TV (CTV) households in the U.S., significantly expanding the reach of its advertising. The path to $3 trillion Amazon has a market cap of roughly $2.32 trillion as of this writing, so it will only take a stock price increase of about 29% to boost its value to $3 trillion. According to Wall Street, Amazon is expected to generate revenue of $708 billion in 2025, resulting in a forward price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 3. Assuming its P/S remains constant, Amazon would need revenue of roughly $914 billion annually to support a $3 trillion market cap. Wall Street is currently forecasting Amazon's growth to be roughly 10% annually over the next five years. If the company achieves that target, it could achieve a $3 trillion market cap as soon as 2028. That might well be conservative, as Amazon has grown its annual revenue by 561% over the past decade, and by 13% in the most recent quarter, fueled by demand for cloud and AI services. Furthermore, at 33 times earnings, Amazon trades at a slight premium compared with a multiple of 29 for the S&P 500 -- yet has generated stock price gains of 719% over the past 10 years, far exceeding the S&P 500, which rose just 202%. This makes a compelling case that Amazon stock is attractive at this price. Should you invest $1,000 in Amazon right now? Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Amazon 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 $653,427!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,119,863!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 182% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 11, 2025 Danny Vena has positions in Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Roku, and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Roku, and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool recommends GE Aerospace and 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. Prediction: This Unstoppable Stock Will Join Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple in the $3 Trillion Club Before 2028 was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
