The case for buying Amazon over Alphabet is building.
Jefferies added Amazon to its franchise picks list in a Wednesday note, citing increasing e-commerce adoption and fast growth in the company’s Amazon Web Services and advertising businesses.
Analysts removed Google parent Alphabet from the list in the same note, saying that while they liked the stock, its valuation appeared stretched after a substantial move higher in recent months.
Alphabet is currently up more than 38% year to date while Amazon has risen by just over 6%.
Two traders also backed Amazon in a Wednesday interview with CNBC’s “Trading Nation.”
“It has not shown nearly the same degree of being overbought” as Alphabet, said Mark Newton, president and founder of Newton Advisors.
“My thinking is you can get up to 3,500 and it’s a very easily defined risk level which is right near 3,100 on the downside,” he said.
Amazon rose about 1% by midday Thursday to around $3,457.
Alphabet’s stock chart is slightly more foreboding, Newton said.
He noticed a negative divergence between the stock and its relative strength index, a key momentum indicator. Though the stock has been hitting new highs, the indicator hasn’t notched any records, which technicians often interpret as a sign of an impending downturn.
“That’s a problem at this stage of the rally. So, I think you have to keep stops very tight if you’re long, right near 2,200, which is May lows,” Newton said. “I would much prefer to be in Amazon at this stage over Alphabet.”
Shares of Alphabet were up by less than half of 1% at $2,424 by midday Thursday.
Not only is Amazon’s valuation more attractive relative to Alphabet’s, but the trends driving its success aren’t going anywhere, Delano Saporu, founder and CEO of New Street Advisors Group, said in the same “Trading Nation” interview.
“The trends that were mentioned in the Jefferies note, those are going to be here to stay,” he said, citing the firm’s proprietary survey that found that 60% of the 700 adults questioned were spending more online since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
“If you look at their differentiation in their business, AWS [is] obviously a strong-growing place for Amazon,” Saporu said. “That’s a high-margin business and I anticipate more growth on that side. So … there’s a lot of upside for Amazon and that’s why I would be buying here.”
Disclosures: New Street Advisors Group owns shares of Amazon.
