Amazon gets big upgrade

Posted Jul 8th 2009 4:50PM by Michael Fowlkes
Filed under: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades, Forecasts, Good news, Products and Services, Management, Competitive Strategy, Amazon.com (AMZN), Recession

Shares of online retailer Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) are trading a bit higher this afternoon after being upgraded today by Susquehanna Financial.

Susquehanna Financial analyst Marianne Wolk raised her rating on the stock this morning to a "positive" from a "neutral" rating and put a $100 price target on the company. The stock is currently trading up 1.7% on the day to $76.91, up $1.28.

Amazon is scheduled to report its second quarter earnings later this month, and Wolk thinks that we are going to see estimate-beating numbers.

Wolk based her revised opinion on the stock on several factors, including a weaker dollar, increased market share, and its ability to expand into new categories and countries over the past few quarters. Amazon is in pretty good shape these days for sure. Not only is the company steadily gaining market share in its online retail business, but it is also benefiting from the fact that online retailing on a whole is taking business away from offline retailing.

The company that can emerge as King of online shopping is going to find itself in great shape down the road, and Amazon is definitely positioning itself to be the leader of online retailing.

Let's close by taking a look at a 12 month chart on the stock to see just how well it has been able to perform in the current economic environment: