Readers’ Choice: Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Will Be 2017’s Best Stock

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Editor’s note: This column is part of our Best Stocks for 2017 contest. The public pick for the contest is Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).

Readers' Choice: Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Will Be 2017's Best StockThis year as we compiled our expert picks for the Best Stocks of 2017, we also wanted to hear from you, the reader. Our poll was close for a while, with companies like Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) and Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) — which Louis Navellier picked as his top stock for the year — all in the running.

But in the end, as it so often does, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) took the lead.

There are a multitude of drivers that brought Amazon to the point it’s at. Everyone knows about the broad strokes that have led to AMZN stock returning nearly 1,800% in the past 10 years, trumping the S&P 500 by 1,700 percentage points!

And based on our poll, a lot of people think Amazon is going to continue that outperformance through 2017.

Looking at what AMZN stock has in store, it’s hard to argue the point.

Amazon has built a solid foundation with its core e-commerce business. It has built a profit center out of its Amazon Web Services cloud offerings. And AMZN — always willing to try new things — is pressing forward with its Amazon Go brick-and-mortar stores, among other initiatives.

Now, we’ll see if Amazon can press past our 10 expert picks in the Best Stocks for 2017 contest.

Amazon Keeps Innovating

So, what’s new?

Amazon wants people to add grocery shopping to the long list of things that are now easier thanks to the power of apps with Amazon Go. The idea is you scan the app on your phone, then grab what you need and go … no fuss, no muss.

Analysts differ as to how big an impact Amazon Go will have, but there’s no denying that it’s emblematic of what has made Amazon such a good company for so long. AMZN stock keeps finding new ways to streamline the process of commerce.

In other words, it keeps finding new ways to make it easier for you to buy things from Amazon.

Speaking of which, there’s Amazon Prime … which also makes it easier to buy things from Amazon, but that the company has used to expand its reach into your household. While plenty of people pick it up for the shipping deals, it has also been growing its video offerings in an attempt to usurp streaming king Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX).

In fact, near the end of 2016, Amazon Prime Video reached out to a total of 242 countries, with a late, low-cost push.

Amazon is poised to start taking on the leader in the space, not only through ubiquity but through quality.

After all, Amazon just snuck past Netflix in number of Golden Globe nominees received. Stellar original programming is not solely Netflix’s purview anymore, and people are taking note.

Then there’s Amazon Web Services. Synergy Research estimates that AWS’ market share for infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is approaching 50%, and it holds a sizeable but smaller lead in platform as a service (PaaS). And independent of its rivals, AWS is simply growing by leaps and bounds. AWS revenue skyrocketed 58% year-over-year in the second quarter, and followed that up with 55% growth in Q3.

Speaking of growth, analysts see revenue growth of over 20% both next quarter and next year. Earnings are likewise expected to see some major increases — 37% in the current quarter and a whopping 62% in the first quarter of next year.

Would that be enough to take first place in the Best Stocks of 2017 contest?

At the least, readers are pretty confident that we haven’t seen everything that AMZN stock has to show us for the coming year yet.

As of this writing, Jessica Loder did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

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Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2016/12/best-stocks-2017-amazon-com-inc-amzn-stock/.

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