Wedbush Securities adds Amazon stock to its list of ‘best ideas’

Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) is slightly in the red at writing even though Wedbush Securities added the eCommerce giant to its list of “best ideas” on Tuesday.

Amazon stock has upside to $180

The firm rates Amazon stock at “outperform” and sees upside in it to $180 that suggests about a 35% upside from here.

Wedbush analysts are bullish on the Washington-based multinational primarily because they see its core business as underappreciated. Their research note reads:

Amazon’s core business is now well-positioned with an industry-leading fulfillment infrastructure that is delivering 4x as many same-day or next-orders in the U.S. versus 2019.

Earlier this month, the Nasdaq-listed firm reported financial results for its second quarter that handily topped Street estimates and raised its guidance for the full year.

AMZN is well-positioned in cloud and advertising

Amazon reported a 12% annualised growth in its cloud business – the Amazon Web Services in its recently concluded quarter (find out more) and Wedbush Securities expects further upside in that segment in 2024.  

The firm recommends owning Amazon stock also because the digital advertising backdrop is now improving. Note that advertising is a high-margin business for the tech behemoth.

eCommerce and advertising post-COVID growth rates are bottoming and the underlying secular growth trends underpinning the industry should re-appear in coming quarters.

Finally, Wedbush Securities expects artificial intelligence to be a long-term catalyst for this stock. Last month, Amazon announced AWS HealthScribe – an AI-powered service aimed at saving healthcare workers’ time.