Wedbush starts coverage on eCommerce, digital ad cos; Amazon on top of list

MercadoLibre

22/08/2023 11:50

** Analysts at Wedbush initiate coverage of the eCommerce
and digital advertising companies, with "outperform" rating on
Amazon.com Inc  AMZN.O  
    ** Brokerage also assumes "outperform" on Alphabet
 GOOGL.O , MercadoLibre  MELI.O , Meta  META.O , Sea Ltd  SE.N 
and Shopify  SHOP.N ; shares of cos rise between 0.2% and 1.1%
premarket  
    ** Initiates Pinterest  PINS.N  and TripAdvisor  TRIP.O 
with "neutral" rating  
    ** AMZN shares up 0.6% premarket 
    ** Wedbush says the strength of AMZN's core retail business
is underappreciated after a period of weak growth against
challenging pandemic comps; adds co to its "Best Ideas List"
    ** AWS growth has stabilized and is poised to reaccelerate
in 2H23 and into 2024, while advertising services should benefit
from the improving advertising backdrop - Wedbush 
    ** Says margins are set to rise in 2024 across eCommerce,
digital advertising, and cloud services industries after tighter
cost controls       
 Company RIC       Rating      Price Target
 AMZN              Outperform  $180
 MELI              Outperform  $1,500
 SE                Outperform  $48
 SHOP              Outperform  $62
 GOOGL             Outperform  $160
 META              Outperform  $350
 PINS              Neutral     $30
 TRIP              Neutral     $17
  

 (Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal)
 ((Shreyashi.Sanyal@thomsonreuters.com;))