Amazon Stock Cheapest It's Been In Years? Why This Investor Keeps Buying Up Shares

Zinger Key Points
  • Stephanie Link notes that Amazon is trading at 13 times EBITDA versus its historical average of more than 20 times EBITDA.
  • "I think the consumer is on fire," Link says.

Hightower Advisors’ Stephanie Link can’t stop buying Amazon.com Inc AMZN with the stock trading at its most attractive valuation in years.

What Happened: “I like it a lot,” Link said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report.” “It’s trading at 13 times EBITDA and historically it’s traded at over 20 times EBITDA.”

The investment strategist, who said she bought Amazon shares for the second time in a week, noted that the Seattle-based firm has a lot of ways to win. Amazon Web Services (AWS) should see an acceleration from the 12% growth the company reported last quarter, Link said. She told CNBC that she anticipates 15% to 16% growth when Amazon reports fourth-quarter results and that number could climb in the second half of the year.

“They signed a whole bunch of new customers after the quarter closed so that’s why I think you are going to see an acceleration,” Link said.

See Also: Amazon Slapped With $35M Fine By French Privacy Watchdog For ‘Excessively Intrusive’ Employee Monitoring

Amazon can also win with margins, she said. Retail margins are on the rise and there’s still more the company can do to help lift margins, especially as costs come down, she added.

Amazon increased spending during the Covid-19 pandemic to meet fulfillment demand, but that spending is done, which gives the company significant operating leverage, she said.

“And I think the consumer is on fire. Look at retail sales last week: 9.4% was online. So I think that they’re clearly continuing to see momentum,” Link said.

Amazon can also win with advertising. Ad revenues were weak last year, but are expected to turn around in 2024.

“Probably for the whole sector, the whole FAANG complex of course, but I think that it’s underappreciated at Amazon,” she added.

Amazon is the clear favorite among Wall Street analysts for 2024. Several other members of the Halftime Report panel also spoke favorably about the Jeff Bezos-founded company this week.

Virtus Investment Partners’ Joe Terranova suggested that he may be buying Amazon stock next week when he rebalances the Virtus Terranova U.S. Quality Momentum ETF JOET.

AMZN Price Action: Amazon shares are up more than 60% over one year. The stock was up 0.74% at $157.18 at the time of publication, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: courtesy of Amazon.

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs
Comments
Loading...
Posted In: Long IdeasNewsTrading IdeasCNBCExpert IdeasJoe TerranovaStephanie LinkStories That Matter
Benzinga simplifies the market for smarter investing

Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.

Join Now: Free!