Will Amazon.com (AMZN) Return to Pre-COVID Levels?

Investment management company RGA Investment Advisors recently released its fourth-quarter 2022 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. 2022 was a difficult year for the market and forecasting business trends and opportunities were challenging. The firm focuses on growing companies, at reasonable valuations with demonstrable business quality. The firm also believes that Biotech and life science tools and instruments verticals are the most interesting areas for better future returns. You can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2022.

RGA Investment Advisors highlighted stocks Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in the fourth quarter investor letter. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) provides consumer products and subscriptions. On February 3, 2023, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock closed at $103.39 per share. One-month return of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) was 18.35%, and its shares lost 34.54% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has a market capitalization of $1.055 trillion.

RGA Investment Advisors made the following comment about Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q4 2022 investor letter:

“There is unfortunately one stubborn problem that cannot be solved with a resumption of growth: the average company which experienced the surge increased investment pace. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s CEO, Andy Jassy summed it up well:

You just look in 2020, our retail business grew 39% year-over-year, at a $245 billion annual run rate, which is unprecedented, and it forced us to make decisions in that time to spend a lot more money and to go much faster in building infrastructure than we ever imagined we would. We built a physical fulfillment center footprint over 25 years that we doubled in 24 months. We made that decision even though we knew we might be overbuilding….but we decided we were going to shade on the side of consumers and sellers.

From Amazon’s perspective, had they not made those investments and e-commerce share gains persisted, the company would have risked losing market share to others with the temerity to invest. The silver lining for a company like Amazon is although they did not immediately grow into the substantial investments, they likely will do so over the coming years. Time will be the necessary condition to ease these investments that today are pressuring the margins of so many companies, including some in our portfolios.”

Amazon

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Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is in 2nd position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 269 hedge fund portfolios held Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) at the end of the third quarter, which was 252 in the previous quarter.

We discussed Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)  in another article and shared Alger Capital’s views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2022 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.