Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Says Goodbye to CFO

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By Carly Forster

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is a Seattle, Washington based American international electronic commerce website, as well as the largest internet company in the world. On September 3rd, the company announced that its Chief Financial Officer, Thomas J. Szkutak, will retire in June of 2015. Szkutak has held this position since October 2002 and will be succeeded by Brian Olsavsky, the current vice president of finance for Amazon’s global consumer business.

During his time at Amazon, Szkutak’s work allowed the company’s annual sales to grow 15-fold. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in a statement, “Tom’s impact over the past 12 years is evident in every part of our business…Under Tom’s stewardship, customers have benefitted from category expansion and geographical expansion, along with amazing new businesses like [Amazon Web Services] and Kindle.”

Shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) opened at $342.54 on Wednesday, August 3rd. The website has a 1-year high of $408.06 and a 1-year low of $284.38. The stock’s daily moving average is $340.41 and has a 50-day moving average of $334.20. The market cap for Amazon is $156.63 billion and its P/E ratio is 528.86.

On September 3rd, Topeka Capital analyst Victor Anthony maintained a Buy rating on Amazon with a $395 price target. He said about Szkutak, “He oversaw the financial operations of the company from near $4B in annual revenues in 2002, to an expected $91B in revenues in 2014. During that time, Amazon expanded into new geographies, and beyond retail to Web Services, video, groceries, payments, e-Readers, Tablets, set-top boxes, and phones. Best wishes to him. He will be succeeded by Brian T. Olsavsky, VP of Finance for the global consumer business, who also joined Amazon in 2002 as VP of Finance. Given that Szkutak will be on board until June 2015 and Olsavsky has been with the company since 2002, we expect minimal risks in the transition.” Anthony, who is ranked #17 out of 3268 analysts on TipRanks, has a +24.0% average return on all stocks he has rated, an 84% success rate in overall recommendations. He has a 75% success rate recommending Amazon, earning him a +7.5% average return on the stock.

On the other hand, on September 1st Investor Place blogger Portfolio Grader named Amazon as one of four e-Commerce stocks to Sell now. He reasoned that the stock get an F in Earnings Revisions and Earnings Surprise. Portfolio Grader has a +0.1% average return on all stocks he has rated, a 48% success rate in making recommendations, and is ranked #2212 out of 3757 bloggers on TipRanks. He has a 0% success rate recommending Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), earning him a -1.7% average return on the stock.

On average, the top analyst consensus for Amazon is Moderate Buy.

To see all recommendations for Amazon, visit TipRanks today!

Carly Forster writes about stock market news. She can be reached at [email protected]

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