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It’s “MAGA,” for the markets.
Microsoft, Amazon, Google-parent Alphabet and Apple are soaring this year, making up a combined market value of nearly $4 trillion. That exceeds the combined value of half of the S&P 500 companies.
But the title of “greatest” can only be bestowed upon one name.
“Amazon to me is really the best of the four,” Newton Advisors’ Mark Newton said Thursday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” “It’s had a huge trajectory over the last 10 years, [it] has done a lot better than some of these other stocks, and still maintains, you know, very attractive technicals.”
The stock rose 1.5% in early trading Friday after the e-commerce company beat first-quarter profit forecasts by a wide margin and posted 17% in revenue growth. Amazon also predicted a 13% to 20% increase in second-quarter sales, although the company’s operating profit guidance did fall short of analyst estimates.
Shares of the tech giant have already rallied nearly 50% since their steep slide at the end of 2018. But the stock still hasn’t regained its September 2018 $2,050 all-time high, which Newton says means there’s still opportunity in the name.
“I think it does get back to former highs. It might stall out briefly, but it would be one of the four that I still like. And you know I think the group still does fine in the weeks and months to come,” he added.
Strategic Wealth Partners’ Mark Tepper agrees that Amazon looks good on a fundamental basis. He believes the valuation is compelling, and that growth from higher margin businesses will continue to drive the stock higher.
“All four great companies,” he said of the MAGA basket of stocks, “but the one that’s most attractive to me is Amazon. …They haven’t seen that recent runup in price that the other stocks have. And it’s quite simply way undervalued.”
Amazon currently trades at 143 times forward earnings, making it more expensive than Microsoft, Alphabet and Apple, which trade at 114, 56 and 85 times forward earnings, respectively.
Tepper likes the Seattle-based company’s diversified revenue streams — especially the growth of its AWS cloud services business.
“We love the three pillars of their business. Obviously you have retail, cloud, and advertising … and Amazon has AWS. They are the dominant player. They’re number 1 in the cloud space. They have been growing that business at over 40% annually. And then we shift over to their other high margin business which is the ad business. They’re swiping ad dollars from Google and Facebook,” he said.
With growth and momentum behind Amazon, Tepper believes it will soon take out the $2,250 level.
The stock has gained about 27% this year, and was trading around $1,912 on Thursday.
Another of the MAGA trade, Microsoft, soared to a new all-time high on Thursday — topping the $1 trillion mark — after the company beat top and bottom line estimates, helped by cloud revenue and software subscription growth.
But Newton believes the stock’s record rally may have gotten ahead of itself. He thinks there could still be some opportunity in the near term, but that the stock looks overbought and has gotten “very stretched.” He prefers Amazon since it’s still trading below it’s all-time high.
— Disclosure: Mark Newton, Mark Tepper and Strategic Wealth Partners own shares of Amazon.
