Index Fund Advisors Inc. Lowers Stake in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Key Points

• Index Fund Advisors Inc. reduced its stake in Amazon.com by 53.9%, selling 7,985 shares and retaining 6,819 shares worth approximately $1.3 million.
• Insider Jeffrey P. Bezos sold over 2.6 million shares of Amazon stock, worth approximately $609 million, while maintaining ownership of nearly 884 million shares.
• Analysts have set a consensus price target of $262.45 for Amazon, with many ratings upgraded to "buy" from various investment firms in recent reports.

Index Fund Advisors Inc. cut its holdings in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN - Free Report) by 53.9% in the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,819 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock after selling 7,985 shares during the quarter. Index Fund Advisors Inc.'s holdings in Amazon.com were worth $1,297,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Leavell Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in Amazon.com by 4.4% in the 1st quarter. Leavell Investment Management Inc. now owns 92,883 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock valued at $17,672,000 after buying an additional 3,941 shares during the period. Main Street Research LLC increased its stake in Amazon.com by 1.8% during the first quarter. Main Street Research LLC now owns 312,450 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock worth $59,447,000 after purchasing an additional 5,502 shares during the period. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in Amazon.com by 1.2% during the first quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 1,993,541 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock worth $379,291,000 after purchasing an additional 23,758 shares during the period. Alpha Financial Partners LLC increased its stake in Amazon.com by 60.5% during the first quarter. Alpha Financial Partners LLC now owns 4,649 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock worth $885,000 after purchasing an additional 1,752 shares during the period. Finally, Topsail Wealth Management LLC grew its position in shares of Amazon.com by 8.7% during the first quarter. Topsail Wealth Management LLC now owns 13,508 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock worth $2,570,000 after buying an additional 1,082 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.20% of the company's stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Douglas J. Herrington sold 2,500 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Friday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.00, for a total value of $542,500.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 512,050 shares of the company's stock, valued at $111,114,850. The trade was a 0.49% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Jeffrey P. Bezos sold 2,643,142 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $230.43, for a total transaction of $609,059,211.06. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 883,779,901 shares in the company, valued at $203,649,402,587.43. This trade represents a 0.30% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 25,102,037 shares of company stock valued at $5,674,937,048. 10.80% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Telsey Advisory Group upped their price target on Amazon.com from $235.00 to $265.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a report on Friday, August 1st. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on Amazon.com from $220.00 to $244.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Monday, July 21st. Monness Crespi & Hardt upped their price target on Amazon.com from $265.00 to $275.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, August 1st. Scotiabank increased their price objective on Amazon.com from $250.00 to $275.00 and gave the stock a "sector outperform" rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Finally, Citizens Jmp assumed coverage on Amazon.com in a research report on Thursday, July 10th. They issued a "strong-buy" rating for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, forty-seven have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $262.45.

Amazon.com Stock Up 3.9%

Shares of AMZN traded up $8.44 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $222.19. The stock had a trading volume of 54,656,017 shares, compared to its average volume of 45,179,059. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 1.02 and a quick ratio of 0.81. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $218.57 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $208.96. The firm has a market cap of $2.37 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.45 and a beta of 1.31. Amazon.com, Inc. has a twelve month low of $161.38 and a twelve month high of $242.52.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 31st. The e-commerce giant reported $1.68 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $1.31 by $0.37. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 23.84% and a net margin of 10.54%. The business had revenue of $167.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $161.80 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.26 earnings per share. Amazon.com's quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts anticipate that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 6.31 EPS for the current year.

Amazon.com Profile

Amazon.com, Inc engages in the retail sale of consumer products, advertising, and subscriptions service through online and physical stores in North America and internationally. The company operates through three segments: North America, International, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). It also manufactures and sells electronic devices, including Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TVs, Echo, Ring, Blink, and eero; and develops and produces media content.