Not much can slow down Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) these days. Not even a pandemic. In fact, the novel coronavirus pushed AMZN stock to unprecedented growth. But what did manage to knock down high-flying Amazon was the en masse selloff of tech stocks in early September. With the Nasdaq dropping “10% in a matter of days,” Amazon shares slid 16% in just over two weeks.

The company has yet to recover to pre-selloff levels, but the real question is what will be the next growth catalyst for this stock?

Prime Day — delayed by the pandemic — arrives on Oct. 13. If anything is going to kick off AMZN stock again, it’s Amazon’s biggest shopping event of the year.

Prime members buy millions of items, including Amazon hardware and services, and the company signs up more members as holdouts come looking for deals.

Here’s what Prime Days have looked like in the past, and what to expect for Prime Day 2020.

The First Prime Day’s Pull On AMZN Stock

Amazon held its first Prime Day on July 15, 2015. The sale featured timed deals throughout the day for members, and that exclusivity helped boost the number of customers signing up for a Prime membership.

On that first Prime Day, members ordered 34.4 million items, which Amazon says was a higher volume than its previous record-setting Black Friday sale. Although Amazon did not release the dollar value, JP Morgan estimated the revenue generated by the first Prime Day at $400 million.

Additionally, Prime Day was an opportunity to feature the company’s own hardware, resulting in a big spike in the sale of Kindle eReaders, Echo smart speakers and the like. This success ensured Prime Day would become an annual tradition. At the time of the event, AMZN stock was trading at around $461. By the holiday season — just five months later — shares had topped $675.

Prime Day In Recent Years

Subsequent Prime Days have continued to increase in importance, and even began affecting the AMZN stock needle in advance as investors anticipated monster results.

In 2017, Amazon extended Prime Day to last 30 hours. At that point, the company reported 50% more Prime members made purchases than the previous year. In 2018, Amazon extended Prime Day again, this time to 36 hours. Customers bought more than 100 million items. By 2019, Prime Day was a certified giant, now lasting two days and becoming the company’s biggest shopping event. That year, Prime members bought over 175 million items. Sales surpassed the previous year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday numbers, combined. Likewise, Amazon hardware saw record sales, and the event enticed consumers worldwide to pay for a $119 membership.

It’s estimated that Amazon’s sales revenue for Prime Day 2019 was roughly $7.16 billion. But most interesting of all, AMZN stock had spiked in anticipation of last year’s Prime Day, hitting $2,011 in advance of the July event.

What to Expect for Prime Day 2020

That brings us to 2020. Of course, Amazon sales have been off the charts this year, thanks to a pandemic that has made online shopping a necessity. In its second quarter — much of which covered a period when lockdowns in the U.S. had ended — revenue was $88.91 billion. This blew past estimates and represented a 40% year-over-year increase. Many consumers were still buying online instead of risking going to stores.

So we know that the appetite for shopping online is stronger than ever. What’s more, there’s pent-up demand for deals — Amazon had to delay Prime Day this year. By the time it kicks off on Oct. 13, it will almost be the holiday shopping season. In other words, Prime Day 2020 is going to be huge. Even if it matches the estimated 71% increase in revenue from the 2018 to 2019 events, that’s a $12 billion-plus haul.

And that’s just the kind of big news story that is likely to trigger a jump for AMZN stock.

Bottom Line

Amazon is a company that is built for long-term growth. It’s an e-commerce behemoth, a leading manufacturer (and seller) of consumer electronics, a top platform for streaming video and music, and a increasing presence in the grocery market. The company even mints money with its industry-leading Amazon Web Services (AWS). The current dip in AMZN stock isn’t going to last, but it offers the chance to snap up shares of a Portfolio Grader “A” rated stock at significant discount.

But if you’re interested, you will have to move quick — before the hype over Prime Day 2020 makes it more expensive.

— Louis Navellier

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Source: Investor Place