Amazon Is Spending But Getting Results. 2026 Could Be Its Year.

The e-commerce giant could be a play for investors. (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images)

This article is an excerpt from “Amazon and 9 More Stocks to Buy for 2026,” published on Dec. 12, 2025. To see the full list, click here.

Meta Platforms stock surged in 2023. Nvidia soared in 2024. This year belonged to Alphabet. It could be Amazon turn among the Mag Seven in 2026.

Amazon, at around $232, has gained just 6% this year and trades for about 29 times projected 2026 earnings of $8 a share—we’re using a conservative estimate that includes stock compensation—a discount to a slower-growing Walmart at 38 times earnings.

Investors are worried about Amazon’s $125 billion of capital spending this year, a slowdown at its industry-leading Amazon Web Services cloud platform, and whether it’s harnessing AI as well as some Mag Seven peers.

Amazon is spending, but it’s getting results. It has a 40%-plus share of U.S. e-commerce, while third-quarter AWS revenue growth of 20% was its fastest in 11 quarters. Its lucrative ad platform is generating $75 billion in revenue, and it has a portfolio of promising newer businesses like pharmaceuticals, satellite service Amazon Leo, Alexa+, and Zoox, its robo-taxi service.

Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney, who has a $335 price target on Amazon, calls it his “No. 1 large-cap Internet long” idea. He made similar—and correct—calls on Uber a year ago and on Alphabet in the spring, when both were out of favor.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com