Black Friday set a record with $6.2 billion in online sales, almost a third of it coming from smartphones. Any way you slice it, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) will have generated the lion’s share of those revenues and that has some Amazon stock owners jumping for joy.
As we enter Cyber Monday, the biggest day of the year for online sales, which is expected to bring in $7.8 billion or 18% higher than last year, Amazon stock is likely to take flight as investors revel in all the company’s good news.
But as good as Amazon’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales numbers are, does this mean you should be buying AMZN stock?
There are pros and cons. Here’s how I see things.
The Upside to Amazon Stock
Between the 18% gain expected on Cyber Monday and the nearly 24% gain on Black Friday, it’s clear that shoppers are very confident of the economy and ringing up their credit cards as they did pre-2008.
“Retailers have done their part to build better mobile experiences for consumers and turning nearly 10% more smartphone visitors into buyers this Black Friday versus last,” said Taylor Schreiber, Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) director of digital insights.
Not only was Black Friday strong, but the entire month of November has seen substantial growth.
“Looked at over a longer window, consumer spending for the Nov. 1-Nov. 23rd amounted to $44.2B, up 19.1% over last year’s $37.1B, and compares favorably to expectations of $43.0B (Adobe),” stated Suntrust analyst Youssef Squali. “Visa estimates that holiday shopping spending over the NovDec time frame will be up 17% Y/Y vs. 14.8% for Adobe.”
That’s great news if you’re Amazon, which controls almost 50% of U.S. online retail sales and 5% of all retail sales including brick-and-mortar locations.
The Downside to Owning AMZN
Unless you’ve been stuck on a remote island in recent months, you’ve probably noticed that the FAANG stocks, which includes Amazon, have been taking a beating.
In November alone, the FAANG stocks have lost a combined $400 billion with each of them down at least 5% since Nov. 1.
FAANG Stock Performance
Nov. 1 through Nov. 23
Stock |
% Return |
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) |
-13.2% |
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) |
-21.0% |
Amazon |
-6.0% |
Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) |
-14.2% |
-5.6% |
While Amazon stock’s 6% decline in November doesn’t seem like much in comparison to Apple or Facebook, AMZN has managed to lose 21% over the last three months through Nov. 23, suggesting a more significant trend is afoot.
AMZN stock hit a 52-week and an all-time high of $2,050.50 on Sept. 4. Since then, it has been on a black diamond ski run back toward the $1,200’s, where it started 2018.
Howard Lindzon, someone I follow regularly, wrote the following about the market’s current volatility:
“The honeymoon with a complete disregard for the facts is over. Kudos to those that used the record low volatility year of 2017 to sell all their stocks and crypto and get into cash earning 2.5 percent today,” Lindzon wrote in his Nov. 25 blog post. “I will continue to tell those that ask that unless you are the bank or Buffett, wait until stocks get back above their 200 day moving averages.”
Lindzon is a lot smarter than I am.
If he believes you shouldn’t be buying until it gets above its 200-day moving average — it’s currently just shy of $1,693, 13% higher than Amazon stock — who am I to argue?
Regardless of how good Amazon’s business might be, you don’t fight the trend, and at the moment, it’s entirely downhill.
The Bottom Line on AMZN Stock
As stocks go, I’m an AMZN bull.
Jeff Bezos is a brilliant business person, and while I don’t agree with everything the company does, including mistreating some of its employees, I do think it has one of the best business models in corporate America.
As I stated in October, as the markets correct, investors interested in owning Amazon ought to be buying with cash in reserve to accommodate for further corrections.
As we head into December, I don’t think anything has changed. No matter what the results are for Cyber Monday or the news emanating from Amazon Web Services’ re:Invent conference in Las Vegas this week, volatility in the markets is the new norm.
You don’t want to overplay your hand.
As of this writing, Will Ashworth did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.