Amazon Prime Day Could Prompt Another All-Time High for AMZN Stock

Amazon.com (AMZN) shoppers are gearing up for this year’s “Prime Day” sales event. The July 12 mega shopping bonanza, which will see Amazon Prime members get a crack on deals on over 100,000 items, will launch at midnight Seattle time. The company says it will discount items across “nearly all departments and product categories”, and launch new deals as often as every five minutes over the 24 hours of the sale. Amazon’s one-day only global shopping event will be available to new and existing members in the United States, the UK, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, Belgium, and Austria.

Amazon’s Prime Day was extremely successful a year ago as it became Amazon’s largest sales day ever. Prime members throughout the globe ordered 34.4 million items, or 398 items per second, exceeding Black Friday records at the time. The inaugural event saw the e-commerce giant rake in between $375 million to $400 million in revenue. Analysts at MKM Partners said they are expecting that number to double this year as more prepared merchants with additional items to meet demand take part in the event.

Eager to compete directly with Amazon’s Prime service, Walmart (WMT) CEO Fernando Madeira on Wednesday announced a 30-day free trial of his company’s “ShippingPass” service for all U.S. customers, offering unlimited two-day shipping for a $49 annual membership fee.

In May the Bentonville, Arkansas, mega-retailer lowered the annual membership fee for “ShippingPass” to $49 – Amazon’s Prime service costs $99, or $8.25 a month. It includes free one-day delivery, not to mention video and music streaming.

It is yet unclear how many members are part of Prime, but according to CEO Jeff Bezos the program subscribes “tens of million of members worldwide”.

The July 12 shopping event could prompt another all-time high for AMZN stock. Shares of the web retailer hit a new all-time high on Thursday, surpassing their previous high of $731.50 set in early June. In fact, the company has held up well, spiking nearly 72 percent year-over-year, while gaining 10.34 percent year-to-date, despite the Brexit uncertainty and worries about a deteriorating global economy. And the ticker may not rest until it hits $800. Near term, Amazon stock has created support, suggesting there’s no sign of slowing down.

AMZN Price Action

From a technical perspective, in the past 52-weeks the stock, which keeps making higher highs, has traded between a low of $447.54 and a high of $746.10, with the 50-day MA and 200-day MA located at $717.54 and $630.04 levels, respectively. Additionally, shares of Amazon trade at a P/E ratio of 2.80 and have a Relative Strength Index (RSI) and MACD indicator of 64.89 and +21.01, respectively.

AMZN now has resistance at around $748. Thursday’s all-time high of $746.10 was the first test toward that level. The shares will likely attempt to retest that level a few more times in the coming days. As the equity continues to vacillate at the top of its multi-month trading range top, it should run into its first level of resistance located at $748.61. Next resistance is at $750.

If Amazon can break its near-term resistance, its momentum could push it to $800 by its 2Q16 earnings report, due out in the third week of July.

Amazon.com Inc. last traded at $745.81, a gain of $9.24 over Thursday’s closing price. The name’s market cap currently stands at almost $352 billion, making it one of the five largest companies in the world behind Apple (AAPL), Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), software giant Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) and Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM).

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