Wall Street analysts say Amazon is still a buy, but investors should ‘stay patient’ on AWS

Published Fri, Apr 28 20236:36 AM EDTUpdated Fri, Apr 28 20237:14 AM EDT

Amazon is still a buy after its latest earnings results, even with some weakness in Amazon Web Services, according to Wall Street analysts. The online retail stock initially jumped Thursday night after Amazon reported better-than-expected revenue in its first quarter . But those gains evaporated during the conference call as management expressed concern over the cloud business, which decelerated during the quarter. "As expected, customers continue to evaluate ways to optimize their cloud spending in response to these tough economic conditions in the first quarter," CFO Brian Olsavsky said. "We are seeing these optimizations continue into the second quarter with April revenue growth rates about 500 basis points lower than what we saw in Q1." Amazon shares were last down about 1% in the premarket. The stock is still up 30% this year. AMZN 1D mountain Amazon shares 1-day However, analysts stayed bullish long term on Amazon, citing continued upside in retail, but they urged investors to "stay patient" on AWS and look toward the long-term opportunity in cloud services. "We have to be honest ... we don't know why the slowdown accelerated – was it AWS's financials or housing/mortgage exposure, client mix, or something else? Our best guess is AWS's SMB clients, who have been slower to start optimization efforts," Morgan Stanley's Brian Nowak said to clients in a Friday note. "However, while growth for the summer months seems uncertain, we remind investors: 1) we think we are more than halfway through the optimization headwinds;2) we will start to mathematically lap the optimization headwinds in August/September; and 3) our long-term view about AWS's ability to drive and benefit from the $2.5tn+ public cloud opportunity. Stay patient," Nowak wrote. He reiterated an overweight rating, with a price target unchanged at $150. Bank of America's Justin Post kept his buy rating on the stock, noting a "strong quarter across the board." He slightly raised his price target to $139 from $135, pointing out a "bullish margin path" for Amazon given its retail performance. That represents more than 26% upside from Thursday's closing price for Amazon shares. "We are encouraged with retail progress and likely share gains and note Amazon's investment cycle history suggests room for more margin upside," Post wrote in a Friday note. "As for AWS, results were better than feared, but not as good as Azure, and we think it's possible Azure gets a near-term AI boost (but this won't last beyond 2023, in our view) while AWS's higher exposure to fintech and other start-ups may have impacted April." JPMorgan's Doug Anmuth maintained an overweight rating on the stock and raised his December price target to $145 from $135 – implying shares can rise another 32%. Anmuth noted that the AWS print was discouraging for investors, but he said it doesn't detract from the overall picture for Amazon's cloud business. He expects there will be a trough soon for AWS. "AWS revenue decel from 16% in 1Q to 11% in April was all it took to reverse after-market gains as high as 12% last night. However, the 16% was far more of a surprise than the 11%, and the decel is roughly in-line w/what MSFT indicated for Azure a few nights ago. Stepping back from that single comment & very nearterm dynamics, we believe AMZN posted overall positive results & had many good things to say," Anmuth wrote Friday. "Yes, AWS customers continue to optimize, but we believe AWS will lap some of these effects beginning in 2Q & more in 3Q, & importantly, AWS' positioning in Generative AI/LLMs is growing stronger following critical recent product releases across the stack," Anmuth added. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs' Eric Sheridan reiterated his buy rating on Amazon, and raised his 12-month price target to $165 from $145. The new target implies upside of 50% from Thursday's close. He noted that the market focus on AWS shouldn't detract from the retail story for Amazon. "With a nod to that market debate, we would focus investors' attention to what increasingly looks to be a multiple year margin improvement story for AMZN as a much more material driver of stock price compounding," he said in a Friday note. —CNBC's Michael Bloom and Annie Palmer contributed to this report.