Zacks Bull Of The Day: Amazon

Amazon AMZN has historically been one of the lower Zacks Ranked stocks.  The Zacks Rank focuses on earnings estimate revisions and Amazon historically was posting losses.  Things changed a few years ago as AWS pushed profits higher and higher.  Now the analysts are getting into the habit of raising estimates into the close of the quarter and that has helped the stock to obtain the best Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and it is also the Bull of the Day.

Description

Amazon is a retailer and a tech company.  The company sells it all on its website and also offers a suite of technical services via its Amazon Web Services (AWS) segment.

Earnings Ahead

Amazon is slated to report earnings on April 26 after the market is closed.  The current consensus is calling for $49.95B on top and $1.30 on the bottom line.

Given the recent strength in the transports and select retail names, investors would be wise to prep for the upcoming report.

Earnings Estimates

I am going to keep this one rather simple, as there has really only been one move in estimates over the last 60 days.  I see the Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2018 moving from $8.32 to $8.49 over that time period. 

For the following year, I see estimates moving in an even bigger fashion.  90 Days ago the Zacks Consensus Estimate was $14.48, but that number has moved higher, almost a dollar higher.  The current Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 is $15.45.

That looks like some big-time implied earnings growth to me.

Beating The Number

AMZN has been beating the number a lot of late. Over the last four quarters, there were three beats and one miss.  The average positive earnings surprise was 1,272% ahead of expectations.  That average is skewed by the September 2017 quarter which was a 5,100% positive earnings surprise.  

The most recent quarter was a 16% positive earnings surprise.  The lone miss was the June 2017 quarter with a 71% negative earnings surprise.

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