BMO Capital raises Amazon’s AWS Cloud growth outlook to 20%

BMO Capital keeps an Outperform rating and $230 price target on Amazon.com (AMZN) while raising the firm’s Q3 AWS Cloud growth to 20% from 19%. BMO is also raising its FY24 EPS view on Amazon by 4c to $4.53 and its FY25 view by 3c to $5.30. The firm sees acceleration potential ahead for the company given the optimization normalization in the second half of 2024 and continued Bedrock adoption, though it also warns that the consumer trade-down effect remains the largest variable in the second half of the year, with mixed checks that include a solid back-to-school spend being offset by slowing beauty/electronics/home.