- Amazon shares power to an all-time high on Tuesday.
- Jeff Bezos steps down as CEO and heads for space.
- AMZN gets a new CEO in Andy Jassy, former head of Amazon Web Services.
Amazon (AMZN) shares powered to new all-time highs on Tuesday despite the CEO Jeff Bezos formally stepping down and handing the reins over to Andy Jassy. Jezz Bezos is reportedly to focus his attention on his upcoming space flight abord his Blue Origin venture as well as the Washington Post. Mr Bezos is due to head for space in late July. Despite the departure of its long-time leader AMZN stock powered higher on Tuesday closing up nearly 5% at $3,675.74.
Amazon statistics
| Market Cap | $1.85 trillion |
| Enterprise Value | $1.61 trillion |
| Price/Earnings (P/E) | 67 |
|
Price/Book |
19 |
| Price/Sales | 4.6 |
| Gross Margin | 0.4 |
| Net Margin | 0.06 |
| EBITDA | $55 billion |
| Average Wall Street rating and price target | Buy $4,241.33 |
The reason is the JEDI. Not the Star Wars kind and no Jeff Bezos has not found them in a distant galaxy on his space venture. The JEDI contract was or is a $10 billion cloud computing contract awarded to Microsoft (MSFT). Amazon had hoped to win the deal and had challenged the awarding of the deal to Microsoft. Amazon had challenged the decision in the US courts but no decision had been reached. The Department of Defense has now scrapped the awarding of the JEDI contract to Microsoft and says it will rebid for the contract. This was a boost to Amazon (AMZN) as it now has the possibility of winning a previously lost, $10 billion contract, and the shares powered to all-time highs. Microsoft shares by comparison took the news badly and fell marginally.
The US Defense Department says Microsoft and Amazon are the only cloud providers “capable of meeting the departments requirements”. The new contract is expected to be awarded by April 2022 according to a Defense Department official. An official also said the Pentagon will “extend solicitations to other vendors if it determines they meet requirements”.
In Wednesday’s premarket Amazon shares are up 0.74% at $3703.
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