Why is Amazon stock surging 4% today

Amazon shares AMZN surged 4% on Friday after Evercore ISI raised its price target on the e-commerce and cloud computing giant to $355 from $315.16, while maintaining an Outperform rating.

The move came as analysts pointed to improving trends across Amazon’s retail, artificial intelligence and cloud businesses.

Evercore sees upside from AI-powered retail

Evercore ISI based its revised target partly on findings from its 14th Annual US Online Retail survey.

The survey found that 57% of Alexa AI users had purchased a product they were previously unaware of, providing what the firm described as evidence that agentic AI could add to Amazon’s retail business.

Amazon maintained a 92% penetration rate in the survey, down from last year’s record 95% but still 34 percentage points ahead of Walmart. Same-day delivery usage also recovered to 49%.

Prime customers using same-day delivery spent 3.1 times more than non-Prime members, marking the widest gap recorded in the survey.

Meanwhile, about 46% of respondents who had seen Amazon’s Perishable Checkout feature added fresh groceries to their carts.

Evercore set its $355 price target using a 30-times multiple of its 2028 price-to-earnings estimate and retained Amazon as a top large-cap position.

Amazon expands power supply for AI data centers

Amazon is also expanding its electricity supply in Sweden as it increases data-center capacity in the Nordic country.

The company signed long-term agreements to purchase power from four wind farms developed by Eolus AB and OX2 AB.

The projects are expected to add almost 200 megawatts of electricity to Amazon’s supply. Once fully operational, the company expects to have nearly 1 gigawatt of power supply in Sweden.

The agreements come as major technology companies increase investments in electricity capacity to support growing demand from cloud computing and AI services.

Amazon plans to add another 2 million Nvidia graphics processing units to its data-center fleet in 2027 and 2028, in addition to the 1 million GPUs it previously said would begin being installed this year.

Amazon Web Services has also announced plans to acquire DuckLabs, the Amsterdam-based company behind open-source analytical database DuckDB, to strengthen its analytics capabilities.

Analysts remain bullish on Amazon

Wall Street sentiment toward Amazon has remained positive, with 22 analysts recently revising their earnings estimates upward. The consensus price target implies 27% upside from current levels.

Citizens maintained a Market Outperform rating, citing Amazon’s logistics capabilities and AI model growth.

Rosenblatt Securities also initiated coverage with a Buy rating and a $335 price target, highlighting expected growth in Amazon Web Services.

A Motley Fool report argued that Amazon’s valuation looks attractive relative to Microsoft when its growth rate is considered.

It highlighted AWS as a key driver, noting that the cloud division accounts for 60% of Amazon’s operating income and that its operating income increased 64% year over year in the second quarter.