Piper Jaffray Raises PT on Amazon.com (AMZN) from $68 to $74

April 3, 2008 8:45 AM EDT

Piper Jaffray raises its price target on Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) from $68 to $74 and maintains a Neutral rating.

After performing an online eCommerce survey of 200 consumers, the firm cites several reasons for lower Q1 and FY08 earnings estimates on shares of Amazon.com:

1. the survey suggested sluggish online spending throughout 2008
   
2. 3rd party online data suggested a meaningful slowdown in eCommerce spending during Q1
   
3. consumer confidence is very low, supported by weak same store sales and
   
4. paid click data that was lower than expected.

Piper lowers its Q1 and CY08 EPS estimates on Amazon.com from $0.43 to $0.39 and from $2.03 to $1.91.

Despite the lowered earnings estimates, Piper raised its price target on Amazon.com due to a slightly higher multiple. The firm said Amazon.com deserves a slight premium over the eCommerce group given the Company's strong long-term positioning. Piper now sees Amazon.com trading at 28x '09 EPS, up from a P/E multiple of 25x.

Amazon.com, Inc. operates retail Web sites, as well as provides programs that enable third parties to sell their products on its Web sites in North America and internationally. [BCS]

Related Categories

Analyst Comments

Stocks Mentioned

Related Entities

• Piper Jaffray

Add Your Comment

Name

Subject

Body

Verification can't see the text?
click here to refresh the image.
what's this?