During a segment on the September 3 episode, Mad Money host Jim Cramer shared a detailed bullish thesis on Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). He stated:
Let’s start with Amazon. Ever since we went out to see Amazon earlier this year, I’ve been stuck on something that CEO Andy Jassy told me. He said they’re going to make an immense amount of money in artificial intelligence. They were going to profit from their gigantic commitment to data centers and next year will be huge for the compute sales. Well, I think it’s being pulled forward. I think it may already be huge right now. I also remember Andy talking about the $50 billion semiconductor business that’s buried in the company. I like the healthcare initiatives… Amazon Web Services is doing incredibly well. Their grocery delivery business, wow…
Alright, what can I say? All this for a stock that’s up just 12% for the year; that’s wrong. Amazon’s balance sheet isn’t as good as it was a year ago; enough already. What if Amazon Web Services is able to make four times what it just paid for 2 million GPUs from NVIDIA? That ratio, by the way, is what NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang told me companies can expect to get when they buy NVIDIA chips. That makes me think that Amazon is cheap. We’ve all kind of forgotten that there’s a reason why a smart executive like Andy Jassy is willing to wreck Amazon’s balance sheet like the old days. It’s because they’re going to make fortunes with the money they spend. And we are getting closer and closer to seeing huge profits for investments that the Street has hated. You can’t wait until next year to buy the stock of Amazon. And that’s why it is a screaming buy with the stock trading at about 20 times this year’s earnings. That’s wrong.
How AWS Powers the Bottom Line
Amazon Web Services remains the primary profit engine for the company. In the second quarter, AWS revenue surged 37% year over year to reach $42.2 billion, putting its annual run rate at roughly $169 billion. Operating income for the cloud unit jumped to $16.6 billion. Companies shifting their operations to handle AI and heavy workloads are turning those massive data center investments into high-margin profits. Aside from basic cloud hosting, Amazon.com, Inc. is leaning into its own custom chips, like Trainium and Graviton, and growing adoption of the Bedrock platform to keep its revenue streams strong and diversified.
The Balance Sheet Pressures
Not everyone on Wall Street shares Cramer’s enthusiasm, as it could be pointed out that Amazon.com, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) balance sheet is noticeably weaker than it was a year ago as its long-term debt increased from nearly $66 billion at the end of 2025 to nearly $129 billion by mid-2026. Heavy capital commitments and soaring data center expenses, with full-year capital expenditure guidance climbing around $220 billion, have strained cash flow flexibility. Investors could be worried that the company is spending too aggressively. If enterprise demand for artificial intelligence tools slows down or if the massive influx of compute capacity outpaces immediate market need, those heavy investments could turn into an expensive drag on earnings. It could be argued that management is taking on too much financial risk just to keep pace in the AI arms race.
Hedge Fund Positioning and Bearish Bets
According to Insider Monkey data, 369 hedge funds held a stake Amazon.com, Inc. in Q2, up from 353 in the previous quarter. Moreover, short interest sits at a minimal 0.97% of the public float, highlighting low bearish conviction across the broader market.
With Cramer arguing that Amazon trades at about 20 times this year’s earnings while lagging behind other major tech names, current levels look like an interesting entry point. For market participants willing to look past heavy data-center spending and short-term balance-sheet noise, the quick acceleration in cloud and AI profits suggests waiting for full consensus validation is not strictly necessary.
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