AMZN

Revolution CEO (and former AOL CEO) Steve Case joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the platform’s “Rise of the Rest” 2021 playbook — which aims to spotlight promising startups outside of the coastal tech hubs — as well as the current state of big tech, his thoughts on Section 230, and more. 

MKM Partners analyst Rohit Kulkarni on Tuesday cut his rating on freelancing platform Fiverr to Sell from Neutral, even as he lifted his price target to $185—still below the current market price—from $145.

Amazon plans to expand its Boston Tech Hub and create over 3,000 new jobs over the next several years in the process. Amazon has invested more than $6 billion over the last 10 years in Massachusetts, while creating more than 20,000 jobs throughout the company. The 3,000 new roles will add to the already more than 3,700 current positions at Amazon’s (AMZN) Boston Tech Hub and will span across technology roles including software development and AI, to non-tech roles like HR and finance. “We’re proud to be creating more than 3,000 new jobs over the next several years at our Boston Tech Hub,” said Rohit Prasad, Vice President & Head Scientist for Alexa at Amazon. “We look forward to continuing to be a strong community partner, helping to grow and diversify the local economy, and create new opportunities for Boston and its residents.” Amazon leased a 17-story, 630,000 square foot office tower that will include working space, innovation labs, and mixed-use common areas for Amazon employees. What’s more, Amazon’s investments in Massachusetts have contributed an additional $5.3 billion to the local economy and have allowed small and medium businesses to expand their operations with Amazon. Boston Mayor, Martin Walsh, said, “By further expanding its Boston Tech Hub, Amazon is continuing to create new economic opportunities in our City…This expansion will grow our technology workforce and support a strong pipeline of diverse talent and a range of new jobs and opportunities for Boston residents.” (See AMZN stock analysis on TipRanks) Credit Suisse analyst Stephen Ju reiterated his Buy rating on AMZN last week and raised his price target to $3,860 from $3,750. This implies upside potential of around 16% from current levels. Ju highlights the increase in consumer comfort when it comes to purchasing online. He believes that Amazon is more competitively positioned compared to its internet peers to capture the e-commerce/online purchase market. Consensus among analysts is a Strong Buy based on 31 Buys and 1 Hold. The average price target of $3,831.32 implies upside potential of around 15% over the next 12 months. Amazon scores a 9 out of 10 on TipRanks Smart Score, which implies that AMZN has a strong likelihood of beating market expectations. Related News: Caesars Acquires Minority Stake in SuperDraft With Option to Increase to 100% Tilray To Supply Medical Cannabis To France; Shares Gain 14% Twitter Settles Shareholder Derivative Lawsuits More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: Tilray To Supply Medical Cannabis To France; Shares Gain 14% Caesars Acquires Minority Stake in SuperDraft With Option to Increase to 100% Blackberry Says Unaware Of Reason For Share Bonanza; Street Sees 56% Downside Moderna Says Covid-19 Vaccine Appears To Protect Against Variants; Shares Jump 12%

With more people doing their shopping online these days, it's no surprise that Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Prime membership continues to climb, even in the highly saturated U.S. market. As of the end of 2020, 142 million domestic consumers had access to a Prime membership, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. What's surprising about the numbers is just how fast Amazon added Prime memberships last quarter.

The smooth trend is likely to continue with most of the companies likely to beat earnings estimates when they report this week and the next.

Microsoft will report its Q2 earnings after the bell on Tuesday, and investors will zero in the company's continued cloud growth.

Alphabet (Google) plans to shut down Internet balloon company, Loon.

GameStop short-sellers are blowing up professional investors' funds. But the story is far different for bets against Tesla and other large-cap stocks.

This played to the sweet spots of two e-commerce leaders: retail giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Latin America's largest online retailer, MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI). Amazon's five-year head start on MercadoLibre and its faster growth has put the e-commerce juggernaut into the select $1 trillion-plus market capitalization club.

Let's examine the four top reasons to buy Amazon, even after its stock price has rallied more than 450% over the past five years. Amazon generates most of its revenue from its online marketplaces, but most of its profits come from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world's largest cloud infrastructure platform.

Mom-and-pop shops have long been struggling to compete against big-box stores and online retail giants like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). Sales at toy and hobby stores declined 26% between mid-March of 2020, when coronavirus-related restrictions were first implemented, and late October, compared to the previous year, reports Womply, a software platform for small businesses. It's not just the pandemic that's causing independent toy stores to struggle.

Investors are simply overlooking the direction this company is headed, and the driving force behind it.

The stock market tends to reward investors who buy and hold for the long run. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Home Depot (NYSE: HD), and Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) are three companies building strong relationships with customers -- and they look like attractive stocks to hold for the next few decades. Prime members are fueling rapid revenue growth for Amazon.

Think about the investors who bailed on Amazon, or Apple, or Netflix early on due to losses that may have felt uncomfortable at the time. Here are two financial technology stocks (or fintechs) that you can feel comfortable buying and holding for the next decade or more: PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) and Square (NYSE: SQ). Digital and mobile payments company PayPal is coming off its best year as a public company, returning 116% in 2020 and expanding its market lead in the online payments space.

The year 2020 was kind to e-commerce stocks, and JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) was no exception. China's biggest online direct seller finished the year with its stock price up 150%, as revenue and profits jumped and the company capitalized on opportunities in areas like groceries, pharmacy, and telehealth. After that strong run, is JD poised for more gains?

Robinhood, the online investing app known for offering commission-free trades and giving shares of stock to new users, added roughly 3 million new users in 2020. This is noteworthy given that the average age of Robinhood's users is 31. On Wall Street, the phrase "Robinhood investor" has become synonymous with young traders chasing momentum or penny stocks, rather than quality companies.

In this Jan. 14 Fool Live video clip, Fool.com contributors Brian Feroldi, Brian Withers, and Matt Frankel, CFP, discussed what they're watching in the IPO market in 2021. Brian Feroldi: The thing that I'm going to be keeping a close eye on, especially in the first half of the year is really the IPO market.

The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google

26, 2021 /CNW/ - (NASDAQ: AMZN)— Amazon today announced the Canadian launch of Amazon Future Engineer, a comprehensive program designed to inspire, educate, and prepare children and young adults from underrepresented and underserved communities to pursue computer science. As part of Amazon's commitment to strengthening the communities it is proud to call home, the company will invest $3 million (CAD) over three years to fund unique computer science learning opportunities for an anticipated 1 million students and teachers across the country.

(Bloomberg) -- Tencent Holdings Ltd. slumped after a world-beating surge in the stock pushed its market value to the cusp of $1 trillion for the first time.The Chinese Internet behemoth lost 6.3% in Hong Kong on Tuesday, putting its market capitalization below $890 billion. Traders took profit after Monday’s 11% rally, which was Tencent’s biggest in almost a decade. Adding to the caution were comments by an adviser to China’s central bank at a conference, reported by local media, indicating that excessive liquidity was creating asset bubbles.Read more: China Asset-Bubble Warning Threatens Stock Frenzy in Hong KongThousands of bullish Tencent options lost almost all their value, after some surged as much as 118,300% on Monday. The frenzy in derivatives trading pushed the cost of one-month Tencent options to the highest since March 2014 relative to those tracking the Hong Kong benchmark, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.The prospect that China will tighten funding conditions threatens to derail Tencent’s stock rally, which has been underpinned by a relentless flow of capital from the mainland. Onshore funds have purchased a record amount of Hong Kong shares this month, with about a quarter of that targeting Tencent. As more than a billion people use its WeChat social-media platform, Tencent is ubiquitous to Chinese investors who have no access to Hong Kong shares of rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. through the trading links.Tencent was the most recent mega-cap company to benefit from investor enthusiasm for the tech sector, with its looming milestone a marker for the euphoria sweeping the stocks globally. Before Tuesday, the stock had added $251 billion in January alone -- by far the biggest creation of shareholder wealth worldwide. Warnings are rising that easy monetary policy is fueling bubbles in global equities, especially in the U.S., where gains have been led by the Nasdaq.As investors seek cheaper alternatives, they’ve been piling into Hong Kong equities. That’s helped make the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index one of the world’s best-performing benchmarks in the past month.While Tencent has long been an investor favorite in Asia, returning more than 100,000% since its 2004 initial public offering as of Monday, there are other risks to the rally.In 2018, a government crackdown on China’s online gaming industry squeezed Tencent’s most profitable business, which at the time accounted for about 40% of its revenue. Coupled with a slowing Chinese economy and a weakening yuan, Beijing’s nine-month halt on approvals for new games contributed to a 22% slump in the shares.A campaign against monopolistic practices since late last year has targeted many of the industries in which Tencent and rival Alibaba operate, including the online payments industry. But while increasing regulatory risk has left Alibaba’s shares about 18% lower than their October peak, Tencent has closed at a record in seven of the past nine sessions.Tencent would be the second Chinese firm to join the trillion-dollar club after PetroChina Co., which was briefly worth more than that in late 2007 before collapsing in value. U.S. tech giants Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are also worth more than $1 trillion each, as is Saudi Arabian Oil Co.Tencent was founded in 1998 by four college classmates and a friend from Shenzhen who devised a Chinese version of the instant messaging service ICQ. Led by “Pony” Ma Huateng -- ma is Chinese for “horse” -- the company’s chat software became the primary communication tool for a generation of young Chinese.Tencent’s surge has outpaced all but the most bullish analysts’ forecasts. The stock’s closing level of HK$766.50 on Monday was almost 10% higher than the consensus 12-month price target compiled by Bloomberg, the widest gap since 2014.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.