We recently published a list of the 10 Best Stocks to Buy and Hold For 3 Years. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) stands against the other best stocks to buy and hold for 3 years.
What to Expect From the Stock Market in 2025?
On December 12, Tom Lee, Fundstrat Global Advisors managing partner and head of research, joined CNBC’s ‘Closing Bell’ to discuss his playbook for 2025. Following two years of significant gains, his playbook suggests an optimistic yet cautious outlook for the stock market next year. Lee anticipates that the S&P 500 will rise to approximately 7,000 by mid-2025, before retreating to around 6,600 by the end of the year. This reflects an overall expected increase of about 8% for the year, which is consistent with historical averages for stock market returns. In terms of Earnings Per Share (EPS) estimates Lee projects EPS for the S&P 500 at $260 in 2025 while estimating $300 for 2026. This is slightly below the consensus estimates from Wall Street, which average around $268 for 2025.
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Explaining his investment thesis, Lee pointed towards several themes that could drive the market in 2025. He predicts a “tale of two halves,” where the first half of the year will see stronger market performance due to factors like Federal Reserve policies and business-friendly initiatives under President Trump. Conversely, he expects a pullback in the second half, reflecting historical trends after strong consecutive years. He sees potential in small-cap stocks, which have underperformed relative to large-cap stocks historically. Lee also talked about the mega caps that are leading. He mentioned that investors reach for these companies when there is even slight risk in the market. Secondly, mega-cap stocks are highly sensitive to falling interest rates. With the December cut in effect, the market is bullish for tech, thereby further solidifying the investment case for megacaps.
Despite his generally positive outlook, Lee acknowledges several risks that could impact market performance. For instance, he thinks the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could potentially lead to reduced government spending and slower economic growth if it is too effective in cutting costs. Moreover, the implementation of tariffs could adversely affect economic conditions and corporate profits. Lee pointed out that historical patterns suggest that after two years of substantial gains, markets often experience declines in the latter half of the third year.
A customer entering an internet retail store, illustrating the convenience of online shopping.
Our Methodology
To compile the list of 10 best stocks to buy and hold for 3 years, we applied a consensus approach. We sifted through recent articles to get an aggregated list of the best stocks to buy and hold for 3 years. Next, we ranked these stocks based on the number of hedge fund holders as of Q3 2024, sourced from Insider Monkey’s database.
Why do we care about what hedge funds do? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Number of Hedge Funds: 286
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is the best stock to buy and hold for 3 years. What started as an online book-selling venture in the 1990s is now a major e-commerce, streaming, and cloud technology giant. Over the past 5 years, the company has grown its top and bottom line by 18% and 34%, respectively. During the fiscal third quarter of 2024, it generated $158.9 billion in revenue, up 11% year-over-year. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) generates significant revenue, around 60% from its North American segment, which comprises mainly its e-commerce operations. However, its AWS segment takes the lead in terms of profitability. During the recent quarter, the AWS segment contributed $10.4 billion to the company’s total operating income of $17.4 billion.
Management has been making significant strides in its cloud services through strategic initiatives aimed at improving customer experience. It recently launched the Oracle Database@AWS service, which allows customers to migrate their Oracle workloads to AWS infrastructure with minimal changes to their databases or applications. In addition, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) also entered into a collaboration with Databricks, a leader in data analytics and AI. This partnership focuses on accelerating the development of custom AI models using Databricks Mosaic AI on AWS. Lastly, management signed agreements with several large enterprises, including Booking.com, Capital One, and Sony, signifying AWS’s growing influence and trust among major corporations.
Qualivian Investment Partners stated the following regarding Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN): Amazon’s Q2 2024 results missed consensus revenue expectations slightly while beating EPS expectations nicely. Revenue grew 10.0%, including continued reacceleration in AWS (Amazon Web Services) which grew 19%; however, North American and International ecommerce revenue growth both showed slight deceleration in their growth rates from prior quarters. Advertising revenues grew 20%, which decelerated a bit from prior quarters as well.
Encouragingly, the company continued its streak of delivering impressive cost efficiencies in Q2 with operating margins jumping 420 bps vs. Q2 2023. Q3 2024 guidance was also a bit lower than consensus expectations sparking some short-term concerns about the strength of the consumer. We remain comfortable with our long-term outlook for Amazon’s ecommerce and AWS businesses, and expect they have new avenues of growth to exploit in scaling their advertising and generative AI business in the years ahead. However, we recognize that there is trepidation about the level of capex spending required to scale their generative AI business.”
Overall, AMZN ranks 1st on our list of best stocks to buy and hold for 3 years. While we acknowledge the potential of AMZN to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AMZN but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.