Amazon Will Be First Trillion Dollar Stock, Says Forrester Analyst
Amazon shares jumped after hours Thursday, after the company trounced earnings expectations for the second quarter.
The e-commerce giant posted profit of $5.07 a shareーmore than double estimates and compared to just $0.40 a year ago.
Driving that growth was the company's cloud business, Amazon Web Services, which saw revenue surge almost 50 percent to more than $6.1 billion.
But while Amazon remains the clear leader in the space, Forrester Research retail analyst Sucharita Kodali pointed out that the company can't rest on its laurels.
"The question is, does cloud just get commoditized and does that ultimately bring prices down and compress margins," she said. "Companies like Microsoft and others are not going to simply stand by and let Amazon just completely dominate the market. You will see innovation in the space, you will likely see very, very competitive offers."
Still, Kodali said she expects Amazon to ultimately beat Apple in the race to $1 trillion. She said one of the things the company has going for it, is its ability to beat expectations in almost any business it decides to enter.
"They now have a physical fulfillment business that competes with FedEx and UPS," she said. "They have a media business that competes with everyone from Netflix to HBO and Disney. Then, of course, they have their marketing business that competes with Google, and the AWS business that's competitive with so many of the large technology giants that are out there."
Shares of Amazon were up almost 4 percent after the earnings report. The company closed the day with a market cap of $904 billion, just behind Apple which was worth $958 billion.
For more on this video, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/amazon-jumps-on-promise-of-more-growth).
Following Ford's earnings miss, the stock price dropped despite a bullish outlook from the auto giant. Karl Brauer, an executive analyst with ISeeCars.com, joined Cheddar to break down why investors may not be sold on the carmaker because of the ongoing factor of supply constraints. "The product is not an issue. There's really good product coming from them, including the electric vehicle side, and the demand is not an issue. There's plenty of demand, but nobody really has a solid grasp on when we're going to get past the supply chain issue," said Brauer.
Image-sharing app Pinterest reported big beats on its Q4 earnings for the top and bottom lines. The social platform surprised investors after seeing a decline in users while earnings and revenue were much higher than expected.
Stocks closed at session lows Thursday, mostly due to a larger tech selloff after Facebook parent company Meta reported weak earnings results one day before. The Nasdaq closed down nearly 4% for its worst day since September 2020. Erin Gibbs, Chief Investment Officer at Main Street Asset Management, joins Closing Bell to discuss today's close, Meta earnings, Amazon earnings, and more
Spotify beat fourth quarter earnings expectations, and also reported a jump in monthly active users and in paid subscribers. The report comes as the company grapples with a new question: is it simply a streaming platform, or is it a media company responsible for the content it posts, like Joe Rogan's controversial podcast? Greg Martin, Co-Founder of Rainmaker Securities, joins Closing Bell to discuss why the stock took a hit even though earnings results were positive, how the company can move forward through the Rogan controversy, and more.
