Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock is up 10.5% to trade at $245.86 at last glance, reinstating Big Tech faith after the company surpassed third-quarter earnings and revenue estimates. In addition to enjoying AI investment gains from startup Anthropic, it also saw a 20% revenue jump for cloud computing arm Amazon Web Services (AWS). The e-commerce giant issued an upbeat fiscal fourth-quarter forecast as well, laying off 14,000 employees earlier this week.
The equity has attracted more than 20 price-target hikes in response, including one from Wedbush to $330 to $280. All 58 brokerages covering AMZN call it a "buy" or better, while the 12-month consensus target price of $278.62 is now a 13% premium to current levels.
Amazon.com stock is eyeing its best day since April, earlier hitting a fresh record high of $250.50. Now pacing for their sixth gain in the last seven sessions, the shares sports a 31.8% year-over-year lead.
Traders are flooding the options pits today, with 1.02 million calls and 491,000 puts traded so far today, which is 5 times the volume typically seen at this point. The weekly 10/31 250-strike call is the most active contract, followed by the 240-strike put in that series, with new positions being opened at both. It's worth noting both of these contracts expire at the close.
