AMZN - Amazon.com, Inc.
| Previous close | 1,751.60 |
| Open | 1,750.66 |
| Bid | 0.00 x 2900 |
| Ask | 0.00 x 800 |
| Day's range | 1,746.00 - 1,766.89 |
| 52-week range | 1,307.00 - 2,035.80 |
| Volume | 2,251,550 |
| Avg. volume | 2,935,196 |
| Market cap | 867.402B |
| Beta (3Y monthly) | 1.52 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 77.52 |
| EPS (TTM) | 22.57 |
| Earnings date | 29 Jan 2020 - 3 Feb 2020 |
| Forward dividend & yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-dividend date | N/A |
| 1y target est | 2,167.56 |
- Yahoo Finance
Stock Market Live Updates: Markets close at session lows as tariff deadline looms
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- Bloomberg
Amazon Sues Government After Losing Pentagon Contract
Dec.09 -- Amazon.com Inc. claims the Pentagon failed to fairly judge its bid for a cloud contract worth up to $10 billion because President Donald Trump viewed company founder Jeffrey Bezos as his “political enemy.” Bloomberg's Naomi Nix reports on "Bloomberg Technology."
- Yahoo Finance
Target will spend $3 billion a year to remodel stores: CEO
Target plans to continue to spend big to stay ahead of the competition, CEO Brian Cornell tells Yahoo Finance.
- Reuters
Amazon secures Champions League rights for Germany: report
Amazon.com has secured the rights to broadcast top European soccer Champions League matches for the 2021/22 season in Germany, the U.S. company's second biggest market, the DWDL media trade website reported on Tuesday. The website said the rights included top Champions League matches on Tuesday evenings. Amazon was not immediately available for comment.
- Business Wire
Amazon Surprises Hundreds of Charities by Fulfilling Their AmazonSmile Charity Lists this Holiday Season
(NASDAQ: AMZN) – Amazon today announced that it is surprising hundreds of charities – which support causes from STEM education, to homelessness, hunger, disaster relief, youth organizations, sustainability and more – across the U.S. by fulfilling products requested on each of their AmazonSmile Charity Lists. Amazon is donating hundreds of thousands of items to charities from their AmazonSmile Charity Lists through the end of the year to ensure they have what they need to round out the holiday season, and to get a jump start on the new year. Some of the total items donated include:
- Bloomberg
Just Eat Investors Deserve a Bigger Slice of the Pie
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Prosus NV’s latest bid to acquire food delivery specialist Just Eat Plc was still little more than an appetizer.The Amsterdam-based technology investment firm raised its offer a measly 4.2% to 740 pence-per-share, while lowering the acceptance threshold to 50%. It had little alternative but to increase the value of its proposal: the recent recovery in shares of counterbidder Takeaway.com NV meant that company’s all-stock offer had closed the gap to Prosus’s cash bid, while offering the potential for more upside from the combined entity. The new bid, which was unanimously rejected by the Just Eat board on Tuesday, nonetheless increases the pressure on the Takeaway.com bid as it nears its Dec. 11 deadline for investors to tender their Just Eat stock.Just Eat shares have been trading above 780 pence, higher than both offers. Investors are still expecting a main course — in the form of more generous bids — and they’re right to do so. Takeaway.com’s initial offer back in July looked mightily opportunistic. It could think about giving Just Eat shareholders more of the combined company, up from the current offer of 52%. Prosus’s net cash position means it has plenty of scope to return with a higher bid.Even with the new bid, Just Eat still looks cheap. The Prosus offer values it at just 22 times predicted 2020 Ebitda. Takeaway.com and U.S. peer GrubHub Inc. are valued at 60 times and 32 times forward earnings respectively. Both of Just Eat’s suitors should be able to offer more without riling their own investors.For sure, the British firm has its problems. It faces heightened competition in its home market from Uber Technologies Inc.’s food delivery arm and Deliveroo, which is seeking regulatory approval for a massive cash injection from Amazon.com Inc. It’s also been slow to build out captive delivery networks, which can help attract new restaurants and foster growth (albeit at the cost of short-term profitability).But there’s a reason that the bun fight is over Just Eat, rather than Deliveroo, which has been up for sale at various times over the past 18 months. Just Eat enjoyed an operating profit of 124 million pounds ($163 million) on sales of 780 million pounds last year, while Deliveroo endured a 257 million-pound loss on revenue of just 476 million pounds. Yet the smaller firm was still seeking a valuation of more than 4 billion pounds in its most recent private fundraising round.With each passing month at the center of the takeover scrap, Just Eat risks losing out to its rivals, not least because it has yet to appoint a permanent CEO after the departure of Peter Plumb in January. If neither bidder emerges victorious by their respective deadlines (Dec. 11 for Takeaway.com; Dec. 27 for Prosus), then perhaps the U.K.’s Takeover Panel will step in to create a formal auction and seek final bids.As it stands, Just Eat investors have good reason to ask for a bigger sweetener.To contact the author of this story: Alex Webb at awebb25@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Melissa Pozsgay at mpozsgay@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Alex Webb is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe's technology, media and communications industries. He previously covered Apple and other technology companies for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Amazon Cites Trump Bias at ‘Enemy’ Bezos in Cloud Deal Loss
(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. claims the Pentagon failed to fairly judge its bid for a cloud contract worth up to $10 billion because President Donald Trump viewed company founder Jeffrey Bezos as his “political enemy.”Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud unit, claimed in a lawsuit that was made public on Monday that the Defense Department ignored Amazon’s superior technology and awarded the contract to Microsoft Corp. despite its “key failures” to comply with requirements for the so-called Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract.The Pentagon made those errors because of improper interference by Trump, who Amazon said “launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer the JEDI Contract away from AWS to harm his perceived political enemy -- Jeffrey P. Bezos,” according to the lawsuit. The president has long criticized Bezos, especially for his ownership of The Washington Post.Defense Department spokeswoman Elissa Smith denied any external factors influenced the bidding process. Microsoft spokeswoman Janelle Poole said in a statement that the Pentagon “ran a detailed, thorough and fair process in determining the needs of the warfighter were best met by Microsoft.”Amazon, which filed its lawsuit under seal last month in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, is seeking to prohibit the Defense Department from proceeding without a new evaluation or award decision. The department won’t start work on the contract beyond certain “preparatory activities” until February 11, according to the lawsuit.“Basic justice requires reevaluation of proposals and a new award decision,” the company said in its lawsuit. “The stakes are high. The question is whether the President of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends.”The Pentagon’s JEDI project is designed to consolidate the department’s cloud computing infrastructure and modernize its technology systems. Amazon was widely seen as the front-runner for the contract because it previously won a lucrative cloud deal from the Central Intelligence Agency and had earned the highest levels of federal security authorizations.Amazon said in its lawsuit that the Pentagon’s “pervasive errors are hard to understand and impossible to assess separate and apart from the President’s repeatedly expressed determination to, in the words of the President himself, ‘screw Amazon.’”Amazon was citing a new book by Guy Snodgrass, a speechwriter to former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, that alleges that Trump, in the summer of 2018, told Mattis to “screw Amazon” and lock it out of the bid. Mattis didn’t do what Trump asked, Snodgrass wrote. Mattis has criticized the book, but hasn’t commented on the allegation concerning Amazon.Amazon’s lawsuit also lists other comments and actions by Trump and the Defense Department to make its case that the Pentagon bowed to political pressure when making the award to Microsoft. In 2016, Trump said that when that he would become president, Amazon would “have problems” and that the company was “getting away with murder,” according to the lawsuit.The company also cited the president’s comments during a press conference in July, when he openly questioned whether the JEDI contract was being competitively bid, citing complaints from Microsoft, Oracle Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. Later that month, Trump “doubled down” on that rhetoric when he tweeted television coverage that characterized the JEDI contract as a “Bezos bailout,” the lawsuit says.As Trump’s criticisms persisted, Amazon alleges, the Pentagon took numerous actions to “artificially level the playing field” between the company and its competitors during the bidding process, including a decision in mid-2018 to refuse to evaluate past contract performance. For example, the lawsuit alleges that months after the Pentagon initially reviewed Amazon’s proposal, the Defense Department changed one of its requirements for hosting sensitive data, which prevented Amazon from leveraging its existing data centers and increased its total proposed price.The Seattle-based company also contends the Pentagon ignored critical aspects of its proposal while overlooking Microsoft’s deficiencies on concerns regarding security, price and its ability to offer a marketplace of third-party technology products.While no law prohibits a president from weighing in on a contract, federal agencies must follow strict rules about what they can and can’t consider when making an award decision. Agencies must choose vendors based on the criteria outlined in their requests for proposals to avoid inviting a successful legal challenge, according to procurement experts.Still, the experts have said loosing bidders such as Amazon face steep odds to successfully overturn a contracting decision on the legal basis of political or vendor bias.A study conducted by Rand Corp. found that the U.S Court of Federal claims sustained just 9% of contract protests against the Defense Department from 2008 through 2016. The Government Accountability Office sustained 2.6% of contract protests during the same time period, though a much larger percentage of challenges led the agency to make changes to the procurement decision or terms, according to the study.(Updates with comment from Microsoft starting in fourth paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Naomi Nix in Washington at nnix1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Larry LiebertFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Streaming TV Wars: Netflix Dominates Golden Globes Nominations
Netflix clinched its first-ever Golden Globes best picture nominations Monday. The streaming TV powerhouse grabbed 34 nominations, across the movie and television categories...
- Zacks
Buy Surging Nike (NKE) and Lululemon (LULU) Stock Before Earnings?
Ben Rains dives into Lululemon (LULU) and Nike (NKE) to see if investors should consider buying either stock with the sportswear retailers set to report their quarterly results soon...
- Bloomberg
Apple Validated by Golden Globes After TV+’s Lukewarm Reception
(Bloomberg) -- After a tepid response from critics to its slate of new streaming shows last month, Apple Inc. got some validation on Monday: Its MeToo-themed series “The Morning Show” received three Golden Globe award nominations.The Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated the show for top TV drama series and put its stars, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, in contention for best actress. The winners will be announced on Jan 5.“The Morning Show” debuted on Nov. 1 as part of the launch of Apple’s TV+, a streaming service with a handful of original programs. Critics were split on the show, with about 60% recommending it.Mimi Leder, an executive producer of “The Morning Show,” shot back at the criticism last month at the Code Media conference, saying that “I just kind of thought they were nuts.”“I thought there were a lot of Apple haters who just wanted Apple to fail,” she said. “The reviews felt like an attack on Apple.”In a statement, Apple said that the nominations for the show mark the first time that a streaming service earned such consideration in its launch year. Apple TV+, which costs $4.99 a month, is available on a swath of devices, including those from Amazon and Roku.Unlike competitors such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, Apple is only offering original shows on the service -- rather than well-known reruns that are already a hit with viewers. That makes the nominations more important.But it’s hard to tell how much headway the company has made in signing up customers. It has offered the service for free to tens of millions of Apple product users, but it hasn’t shared how many Apple TV+ users it has.“The Morning Show” centers on a TV news program that’s reeling from the firing of a co-host, played by Steve Carell, over sexual-harassment allegations. Apple has already renewed the series for a second season.To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Gurman in Los Angeles at mgurman1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Nick TurnerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
Amazon lawsuit blames Trump for loss of Pentagon cloud contract
Amazon.com Inc on Monday accused U.S. President Donald Trump of exerting "improper pressure" and bias that led the Department of Defense to award a lucrative $10 billion cloud contract to rival Microsoft Corp. In a complaint filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Amazon said Trump launched "repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer" the Pentagon cloud contract called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, popularly known as JEDI, away from Amazon Web Services.
- Sky News
'Alexa, what is transparency?' Government criticised for hiding details of Amazon data deal
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been criticised after refusing to reveal details of a contract between the Department of Health and Amazon to provide NHS health advice via the voice assistant Alexa. A heavily redacted form of the contract was obtained by Privacy International, citing concerns about the extent of NHS data which the company would be able to access. The Alexa service was launched in the UK in July, when Mr Hancock told Sky News that the device was already being used by millions to ask health questions.
- Zacks
Factors Setting the Tone for Oracle's (ORCL) Q2 Earnings
Oracle's (ORCL) fiscal second-quarter results are expected to reflect solid adoption of cloud-based services and latest Autonomous Database.
- Zacks
Amazon Heightens Exposure in Sports With AWS-NFL Partnership
Amazon's (AMZN) AWS teams up with National Football League to develop tools and technologies for players.
- Reuters - UK Focus
UPDATE 4-UK PM Johnson questions BBC's licence fee funding
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday questioned why the BBC should continue to be supported by an annual fee paid by all viewing households, one of the biggest hints to date that the funding of Britain's main news provider could be upended. The BBC, funded by what is in effect a 154.50-pound ($198) annual "licence fee" tax on all television-watching households, has a central presence in British cultural life, with its TV, radio and online content reaching 92% of the population. When asked by a member of the public on the campaign trail ahead of Thursday's election if he would abolish the licence fee, Johnson said he was under pressure not to "extemporise policy on the hoof".
- Zacks
Netflix's The Irishman Becomes an Instant Hit in the U.S.
Netflix (NFLX) boosts content library with the success of mob drama, The Irishman in the United States amid the ongoing streaming war.
- Reuters
Jeff Bezos says Amazon wants to work more with the Pentagon
Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos said it would support the U.S. Department of Defense as technology companies vie for more defense contracts and the Pentagon seeks to modernize itself. "We are going to support the Department of Defense, this country is important," Bezos said at an annual defense forum at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. Tech companies have faced challenges when trying to work with the Pentagon.
- Zacks
CrowdStrike (CRWD) Q3 Earnings & Revenues Beat Estimates
CrowdStrike's (CRWD) third-quarter fiscal 2020 results gain from strong customer growth and increasing adoption of the Falcon platform.
- Fool.co.uk
Think contrarian! Why I like this much-maligned FTSE 250 stock
Why I think the bigger picture is bright at this well-known FTSE 250 stock.
- Zacks
Alibaba Expands Content Offering With Manchester United Deal
Alibaba Group Holding (BABA) is leaving no stone unturned to fortify presence in the digital media industry and expand content offerings on Youku.
- Bloomberg
Banks Facing Data Crisis May Need Political Help, Denmark Warns
(Bloomberg) -- First there was the financial crisis of 2008. Then years of negative interest rates. Now, banks face what one financial regulator calls the “real game changer.”Jesper Berg, the head of the Financial Supervisory Authority in Denmark, says the next big threat for banks is the rapid spread of big tech into financial services. The competitive tool is personal data and the playing field is far from even, he says.“The banks are constrained in what they can do with data, even using data across business lines, not to mention sharing it,” Berg said in an interview in Copenhagen.The concern is that banks need to comply with strict regulatory requirements to protect client data. But their industry is being infiltrated by competitors that aren’t necessarily subject to the same rules. Berg suggests that political intervention might be the way forward, if banks are to have a fighting chance.“The biggest issue that needs to be decided at a high level of politics is, do we somehow make rules in relation to sharing and use of data similar, or do we keep a difference?” Berg said. “We need to think about whether, and when, we set rules that are different for different types of companies, where the activity is basically the same.”Berg oversees a financial industry that has dealt with negative interest rates longer than any other, after Denmark’s central bank first went below zero in 2012. That’s weakened the finance sector, potentially putting it on the back foot as it tries to strengthen its defenses against new competitors. Lars Rohde, the governor of the Danish central bank, has warned that banks will need to rethink their entire business model to adapt to the new world.The BehemothsBecause of the vast pools of information they collect, tech giants like Google, Amazon and Alibaba already enjoy a competitive advantage over banks, Berg says.According to a February report by the global Financial Stability Board, the proprietary consumer data that big tech extracts from social media, combined with the industry’s access to cheap funding, mean it “could achieve scale very quickly in financial services.”Part of the ascent of tech companies within financial services has to do with PSD2, a European directive designed to open up the payments industry to competition. In practical terms, it means banks need to pass on their data for free to non-banks, provided customers agree.“You could say that we’ve gone to the extreme with PSD2,” Berg said. “Not only can banks not use the data fully internally, but they cannot sell it. They have to give it away.”ChinaThe FSB’s February report makes the point that reducing entry barriers for big tech might ultimately hurt competition in financial services. As an example, the FSB highlights China, where just two big tech firms account for over 90% of the mobile payments market.“Big data lives off selling information about you and me, so that other companies can target us more specifically,” Berg said. “The potential real game changer is big data, depending on what they choose to do.” That’s because “they know more about us than anyone else.”Tech companies that offer loans or take deposits will need to apply for licenses and abide by the same rules as banks, Berg said. But the requirements are far murkier for those that decide to operate as a platform for other financial service providers, and that puts banks at a competitive disadvantage.“The link to customers would essentially be with big tech,” Berg said.“And everyone knows that whoever has the link to the customers” ends up being able to “cream the profit,” he said.To contact the reporter on this story: Frances Schwartzkopff in Copenhagen at fschwartzko1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Amazon Faces U.K. Antitrust Decision to Allow Stake in Deliveroo
(Bloomberg) -- Want the lowdown on European markets? In your inbox before the open, every day. Sign up here.Amazon.com Inc.’s bid to buy into one of the U.K.’s most successful startups may get caught up in antitrust authorities’ fear that they made mistakes in the past.The Competition and Markets Authority has until Wednesday to decide whether to continue a two-month-old probe that froze Amazon’s bid of around $500 million for a minority stake in food-delivery service Deliveroo.“The CMA is very interested in tech giants extending their tentacles into other markets,” said Alan Davis, a competition lawyer at Pinsent Masons in London. Antitrust regulators “are paranoid about it at the moment because they are concerned they have not looked at these mergers enough in the past, like Facebook-WhatsApp.”Authorities were put off over Facebook Inc.’s change of position on how it handled data from WhatsApp, prompting EU officials to accuse the company of misleading them to win approval for the takeover in 2014. Big Tech is a flash point now for antitrust across the globe. In the U.S., there are probes into Google, Facebook and Amazon over allegations they unfairly hinder competition. The CMA is investigating how Google plans to use Looker Data Sciences Inc. data before approving that $2.6 billion takeover.While the CMA’s mission is in part to ensure big deals won’t hamper competition, it doesn’t usually investigate bids for minority stakes. It may have been moved to act this time because of Amazon’s access to an unending reservoir of data from its many businesses. And CMA’s Chief Executive Officer Andrea Coscelli has said that it was a mistake to allow deals like Facebook’s purchase of Instagram.“U.K. regulators may have some antitrust concerns with the proposed investment,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Aitor Ortiz and Diana Gomes. “One of them could be whether Amazon could get access to Deliveroo’s user data, leveraging the delivery giant’s position in other markets besides on-demand restaurant delivery, such as online groceries.”Amazon, Deliveroo and the CMA declined to comment on the matter.Cut-Throat CompetitionThe food-delivery business is no stranger to the regulator’s attention. Two years ago the agency began investigating Just Eat Plc’s merger with a smaller rival Hungryhouse, eventually allowing it to go through because of the competition in the sector.Since then the delivery business has seen a wave of acquisitions and international expansion. Just Eat agreed to a 5 billion-pound merger ($6.6 billion) with Dutch firm Takeaway.com NV in July, while Uber Technologies Inc. was reported to be showing interest in Spanish startup Glovo. However, according to food-service consultant Peter Backman, competition in the sector remains strong.“It’s getting more intense because the pressure to get scale is becoming more intense,” said Backman, a former director of Horizons FS. “Although the market has gotten bigger, they are under huge pressure to become profitable.”Deliveroo has never turned a profit, losing 232 million pounds last year despite a 72% increase in global sales. A ruling against Amazon would be a setback for the U.K. company, which has already raised $1.53 billion in investor funding.In August, it was forced to make an abrupt retreat from Germany after struggling to get a grip on the market.For Amazon, the stakes aren’t as high, but if the CMA decision goes the wrong way, it faces yet another embarrassing exit from a market it has found difficult to crack. It closed its own U.K. food delivery unit Amazon Restaurants U.K. in December 2018, with its American counterpart following suite last summer.To contact the reporter on this story: Eddie Spence in London at espence11@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Christopher Elser, Molly SchuetzFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
