Wellspring Financial Advisors LLC Reduces Stock Position in Amazon.com, Inc. $AMZN

Key Points

• Wellspring Financial Advisors reduced its Amazon stake by 3.2% in the second quarter, selling 2,119 shares and retaining 64,409 shares valued at approximately $15.4 million. Institutional investors collectively own 72.2% of AMZN.
• Amazon reported strong quarterly results, with revenue rising 19.6% year over year to $200.61 billion and EPS of $5.75, well above the $1.82 consensus estimate. Analysts remain broadly bullish, with a “Moderate Buy” consensus and an average price target of $322.39.
• AWS growth and AI demand remain major catalysts, but heavy data-center investment has reduced free cash flow by about $25.8 billion. Recent insider sales were conducted under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plans, though the volume of selling may weigh on sentiment.

Wellspring Financial Advisors LLC decreased its stake in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by 3.2% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 64,409 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock after selling 2,119 shares during the quarter. Amazon.com comprises 0.3% of Wellspring Financial Advisors LLC's holdings, making the stock its 16th largest position. Wellspring Financial Advisors LLC's holdings in Amazon.com were worth $15,355,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AMZN. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Amazon.com by 1.1% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 832,274,556 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock worth $158,348,557,000 after purchasing an additional 8,913,959 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Amazon.com by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 388,653,121 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock valued at $89,708,913,000 after purchasing an additional 6,971,680 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Amazon.com by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 225,120,994 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock valued at $51,753,622,000 after buying an additional 2,479,324 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Amazon.com during the 4th quarter worth approximately $32,868,735,000. Finally, Auto Owners Insurance Co increased its holdings in shares of Amazon.com by 27,376.7% during the 4th quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 98,448,885 shares of the e-commerce giant's stock worth $2,272,397,000 after buying an additional 98,090,585 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 72.20% of the company's stock.

Key Stories Impacting Amazon.com

Here are the key news stories impacting Amazon.com this week:

• Positive Sentiment: AWS expands its data-analytics offering. Amazon Web Services agreed to acquire DuckLabs, the team behind open-source DuckDB. The deal could strengthen AWS’s position in analytics and help attract developers and enterprise workloads, while DuckDB is expected to remain independent. Amazon DuckLabs acquisition
• Positive Sentiment: AI-related cloud demand remains a major catalyst. Amazon is reportedly negotiating with Moonshot AI to host its Kimi K3 model under a potential revenue-sharing arrangement. If completed, the agreement could add AI workloads to AWS, although U.S. scrutiny of Moonshot creates geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty. Reuters Moonshot AI article
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts and large investors remain optimistic. Citizens maintained a Market Outperform rating and a $315 price target, while several hedge funds and prominent investors, including Peter Thiel, David Tepper and Bill Ackman, have recently held or increased Amazon positions. These reports support the view that AMZN’s valuation and AWS growth remain attractive.
• Neutral Sentiment: Amazon is shutting down Mechanical Turk. The closure of the 21-year-old crowdsourcing platform on September 30 appears financially immaterial, but it signals continued portfolio streamlining as AI replaces some human-completed digital tasks. Mechanical Turk shutdown
• Negative Sentiment: AI spending is weighing on cash generation. AWS growth is reportedly accelerating, but infrastructure investment pushed trailing free cash flow backward by approximately $25.8 billion. Investors want evidence that massive data-center spending will translate into durable profits and improved cash flow. Amazon AWS free cash flow article
• Negative Sentiment: Executives sold more than $15 million of stock. CEO Andy Jassy, AWS CEO Matthew Garman, CFO Brian Olsavsky and other senior leaders reported sales. The trades were made under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plans, reducing their significance, but the concentration of selling can still weigh on sentiment. Amazon insider selling article

Insider Buying and Selling at Amazon.com

In other news, CEO Douglas J. Herrington sold 6,362 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $259.01, for a total value of $1,647,821.62. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 476,681 shares in the company, valued at approximately $123,465,145.81. This represents a 1.32% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, SVP David Zapolsky sold 9,258 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.77, for a total transaction of $2,404,950.66. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president owned 41,190 shares in the company, valued at $10,699,926.30. This represents a 18.35% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last quarter, insiders sold 71,589 shares of company stock worth $18,580,205. Corporate insiders own 8.90% of the company's stock.

Amazon.com Stock Performance

Shares of AMZN stock opened at $260.28 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.87, a current ratio of 1.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. Amazon.com, Inc. has a 52 week low of $196.00 and a 52 week high of $287.20. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.81 trillion, a PE ratio of 20.94, a P/E/G ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 1.45. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $250.94 and a two-hundred day moving average of $239.94.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The e-commerce giant reported $5.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.82 by $3.93. Amazon.com had a return on equity of 18.00% and a net margin of 17.44%.The company had revenue of $200.61 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $197.03 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.68 EPS. Amazon.com's revenue was up 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts predict that Amazon.com, Inc. will post 8.05 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts recently commented on AMZN shares. Mizuho set a $330.00 price objective on Amazon.com and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. China Renaissance raised their target price on Amazon.com from $300.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 5th. Wells Fargo & Company restated an "overweight" rating and issued a $328.00 target price (up from $322.00) on shares of Amazon.com in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Telsey Advisory Group set a $335.00 price target on Amazon.com and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Finally, DA Davidson reiterated a "neutral" rating and set a $250.00 price target on shares of Amazon.com in a report on Friday, July 31st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifty-six have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Amazon.com presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $322.39.

Amazon.com Profile

Amazon.com, Inc is a diversified technology and retail company best known for its e-commerce marketplace and broad portfolio of consumer and enterprise services. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company launched as an online bookseller and expanded into a global retail platform that sells products directly to consumers and provides a marketplace for third-party sellers. Over time Amazon has grown beyond retail into areas including cloud computing, digital media, devices and logistics.

Key businesses and offerings include Amazon’s online marketplace and fulfillment services, the Amazon Prime membership program (which bundles expedited shipping with streaming and other benefits), Amazon Web Services (AWS) which supplies on-demand cloud computing and storage to businesses and public-sector customers, and a range of content and advertising services such as Prime Video and Amazon Advertising.

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