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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Amazon.com, GoDaddy, Microsoft and Alphabet

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – April 2, 2018 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN - Free Report) , GoDaddy (GDDY - Free Report) , Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) and Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) .

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Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

Trump's Support for Brick & Mortar Stores Hits Amazon Stock

Shares of Amazon.com, Inc. plunged 4.4% on Mar 28 and dipped a further 0.4% in the after-hours trade after President Trump expressed his dislike for the company’s business practices. As a result, the company has lost almost about $53 billion of its market value.

Per Reuters, Trump is worried about the future of “mom & pop retailers” as well as shopping malls since the online retail giant has taken a significant portion of their market share. Trump is also of the opinion that Amazon is causing damage to the small tax paying retailers.

Reportedly, Trump is trying to control the company by regulating its business practices through antitrust and competition laws. Further, he will also implement stringent tax treatment against Amazon.

This is not the first time the president has raised his voice against the company. Last year, Trump accused Amazon for not paying internet taxes and causing loss of jobs in many cities and towns of the United States. Also, the company was penalised for paying the postal services less for deliveries.

Trump also claimed that The Washington Post, which is owned by the CEO of Amazon, publishes fake news.

However, the company is performing well in spite of the president’s alleged charges. Last quarter, Amazon generated $60.45 billion of revenues, reflecting year-over-year growth of 38.2%.

Coming to the price performance, the shares of Amazon have returned 63.3% over a year, outperforming the industry’s rally of 49.7%.

Strengthening AWS & Winning Clients Continue to Benefit

Amazon Web Services (“AWS”), Amazon’s cloud service provider is gaining momentum with its growing clientele which will generate more revenues for the company. Moreover, it will boost the market share of the company.

The latest client, GoDaddy, is a major win for Amazon and a significant addition to the client base of AWS. The deal will boost GoDaddy’s delivery of products and will enhance the deployment time of these products globally. Per the terms of the multiyear agreement, AWS will also sell some of the products of GoDaddy such as Managed WordPress and GoCentral.

AWS has other important clients like Adobe, Airbnb, Spotify, BMW, Air Asia, Rovio Entertainment and many more. Further, AWS witnessed the highest market share (62%) in the last quarter when compared with Microsoft’s Azure (20%) and Alphabet’s Google Cloud (12%). AWS generated $17.5 billion revenues in 2017, which was up 43% on a year-over-year basis.

AWS has recently launched a new region in France and a second AWS Region in China during the quarter. The company plans to open 12 more Availability Zones (“AZ”) across four regions (Bahrain, Hong Kong, Sweden and a second GovCloud Region in the United States) by 2019.

Hence, we believe Amazon will continue to benefit from its cloud business with the emerging megatrend of cloud adoption across the world.

Strategic Partnerships & Acquisitions – Key Catalyst

Amazon’s growing partnership has been significantly helping the company in shaping its growth trajectory. Moreover, its strong focus on diversification of business is helping it to sustain momentum.

Recently, the company partnered with a French retailer, Monoprix, which will help the company to strengthen its footprint in European grocery market, especially in France. Further, the successful acquisition of Whole Foods has accelerated Amazon’s grocery business.

Acquisition of Ring also helped the company to enter the home automation market.

In December 2017, Amazon expanded its cloud business in China by partnering with Ningxia Western Cloud Data Technology.

Currently, the company carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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About Zacks Equity Research

Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and which to sell for the long-term.

Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.