Amazon Stock Up 4 Percent Monday Morning

Seattle-based online retail giant Amazon saw movement in its stock prices on Monday Nov. 7. According to Nasdaq, Amazon (AMZN) saw a $30.25 or 3.99 percent increase to $785.22 per share on Monday morning. The shift in stock prices is good news, since the company saw a slight drop in its stock prices following lower than expected earnings during the third quarter of 2016.

According to Forbes, on Thursday Oct. 27, Amazon’s shares fell more than 5 percent in after-hours trading following the earnings release, slowing stock momentum that included 30 percent gains over the past year. During the third quarter of 2016 that closed on Sept. 30, net income totaled $252 million, or 52 cents per share, compared to earnings of $79 million, at 17 cents a share, during the year-ago quarter. A group of 38 Yahoo polled by analysts expected an average profit of 78 cents a share for the third quarter of 2016.

In spite of a slight disappointment among analysts, Amazon continues to soar above its competition. The website has a healthy offering of new and used technology products from its warehouse and its approved sellers. The company has been pushing its services and boosting its customer base with Amazon Prime, which offers super fast shipping for customers who buy from its website.

Net sales for Amazon increased 29 percent to $32.7 billion in the third quarter, compared with $25.4 billion in the third quarter 2015. Operating cash flow increased 49 percent to $14.6 billion, compared with $9.8 billion for the trailing twelve months ending the third quarter on September 30, 2015.

The company has also expanded its business into fiber. In the Spring of 2016, RCN Business teamed up with Amazon Web Services to offer customers a super fast connection up to 10-gigabits. As a part of the deal Amazon Web Services Direct Connect customers can link to locations using RCN’s high speed fiber optic network.

Wal-Mart is among the company’s top competitors. On Monday Nov. 7 Walmart (WMT) stock traded at $69.39 up 23 cents or 0.33 percent per share. Black Friday, the biggest retail shopping day of the year  after Thanksgiving, has become fierce competition between Wal-Mart and Amazon. Both companies typically offer sales to deal seeking customers. Wal-Mart has an advantage of retail stores, but in 2015 Amazon started its sales earlier and beefed up shipping to stay competitive.