- Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos will sell up to 50 million shares over the next year.
- Shares of Amazon rose nearly 8 percent Friday after the e-commerce giant reported a sales forecast for the holiday quarter.
A powerful move
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will sell up to 50 million shares of the online retail and cloud services company over the next year, a filing showed on Friday. According to the current price of $171.8 per share calculation, the securities are worth $8.6 billion. According to the company’s latest annual report, the sale was approved on November 8 last year and will be completed by January 31, 2025.
Shares of Amazon rose nearly 8% on Friday after the e-commerce giant reported higher-than-expected sales for the holiday quarter and its lucrative cloud business also showed early gains from artificial intelligence features.
Also read: Amazon plans two AWS data centres for $10 billion in Mississippi
Tech stocks are generally up
Apple shares surged more than 80% last year amid a broad rally in technology stocks, outperforming the benchmark S&P 500. Bezos founded Amazon Books in 1994. He stepped down as CEO and took over as executive chairman in 2021. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he is currently the third richest person in the world, with a net worth of $185 billion.
On February 4, UBS issued a research report, raising Amazon’s price target to $198 and maintaining a “buy” rating. They predict that Amazon’s stock is poised to rise in 2024 as the headwinds dissipate. Ubs further said that despite Amazon’s improved service levels, the “cost of service” in 2023 fell for the first time since 2018.
In addition, “outstanding issues” such as e-commerce deceleration in 2021, profit compression in 2022, and AWS deceleration in 2023 will largely fade this year.
