Amazon stock gets analyst upgrade as AWS growth offsets AI cash strain

Amazon stock traded at 245.23 euros on Lang & Schwarz at 16:09 CET on Thursday, November 12, 2026, 2.07 percent above the Xetra close of Wednesday, November 11. The shares were at 240.88 euros in the latest relevant ad-hoc-news.de report at 13:01 CET the same day, putting the latest move since that report at 1.81 percent.

The fresh market view adds to the debate over whether Amazon.com can turn accelerating cloud demand into durable cash returns. Phillip Securities Research upgraded its recommendation from Accumulate to Buy and raised its target price from 320 US dollars to 330 US dollars, according to POEMS.

AWS momentum meets investment pressure

Amazon Web Services grew revenue 39 percent year over year to 46 billion US dollars in the third quarter, its fastest expansion in nearly five years. AWS operating income reached 17.8 billion US dollars, while management expects cloud revenue growth to exceed 40 percent in both 2027 and 2028.

Demand visibility is supporting the bullish view. AWS backlog reached 578 billion US dollars, up 189 percent year over year, with customer commitments extending into 2029. Phillip Securities also highlighted rising use of Bedrock and the role of Amazon's Graviton and Trainium chips in the artificial intelligence build-out.

Cash flow remains the key risk

The investment burden remains substantial. Amazon spent 77.3 billion US dollars on capital expenditure in the third quarter, while trailing twelve-month free cash flow turned into a 42.4 billion US dollar outflow. The company continues to expect 220 billion US dollars of cash capital expenditure for 2026 and expects spending to increase meaningfully in 2027.

Amazon also recorded a 9.5 billion US dollar pretax gain related to Anthropic in non-operating income. That gain supported reported earnings but does not resolve the operating question: whether AWS growth and AI demand can generate returns faster than Amazon must fund new capacity.

Holiday quarter sets the next test

Amazon's fourth-quarter outlook calls for revenue of 240 billion to 247 billion US dollars and operating income of 28.5 billion to 33.5 billion US dollars. The range makes holiday execution, advertising demand and the pace of infrastructure monetisation the next major checkpoints for investors.

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More developments can be found in More news and analyses on Amazon stock.