Hi everyone. I used to work at AMZN (AWS specifically) as a Cloud Engineer - I was there for nearly 5 years. In my time there, I made lots of friends, many of whom I still keep in contact with today (this will be important later).
The stock was $153 at the beginning of the year, ran up to $200, collapsed back to $150 in the August 5 dump, and has had a hard time breaking $195 since. Today is a rough day in the market, but it's only one day - overall, the market is pumping in an upward trend due to the upcoming election. Additionally, the market is due for a melt up next year.
There's a lot of resistance at $200 for AMZN, but with the upcoming earnings today, along with the upward market trend toward the end of the year, once we break through $200, it'll keep carrying.
Now on to earnings: AMZN has lost a lot of high-paid employees over the past few months. Everyone knows about the RTO mandate that Jassy has implemented, and I've been hearing from multiple friends that people are leaving and looking for better opportunities elsewhere. **This is great for earnings**, as it shows that AMZN is cutting overhead costs for many of its departments, along with cutting several high-profile departments altogether. The AWS money machine continually grows, especially with the new services and tiers for each service it has been deploying - YoY growth is expected to increase. Additionally, the retail side of the company hasn't slowed down.
Last, but not least, I ordered something from AMZN and they said it was going to arrive in 2 days, but it arrived in 1.
My position: 200 shares @ $187.09 avg, hold through the election. After my 200 shares, I had enough for a few calls, so I bought a lotto ticket of 195C Exp 11/1, although the 11/8 Exp would probably be better.
4:10PM EDIT: The stock is up AH, but we need to break through $200. If we break through $200 AH, we should hold throughout the night and continue in an upward trend through tomorrow. If we do not break $200, we will be up but I'm not expecting a huge gain.
The actual earnings call will let us know where the stock is headed tomorrow.