Cyber Monday is the shopping day for those that may oppose going to brick-and-mortar retail outlets on Black Friday. This year, despite surging inflation, poor consumer sentiment and a host of other issues, the final numbers for the online shopping spree came in above expectations at $11.3 billion, up 5.8% over 2021. It should be noted that last year marked the first-ever Cyber Monday sales decline.
Shoppers spent a record $9.12 billion online on Black Friday, up 2.3% from last year. According to Adobe, e-commerce activity continued to be strong over the weekend, with $9.55 billion in online sales, so a massive $30 billion in sales came in over the four-day post-Thanksgiving holiday period.
Electronics, video games, hot retail fashions and a host of other items were big winners. After crunching the data, we decided to screen our 24/7 Wall St. equity research database for the stocks that raked in the holiday shopping bonanza. Five top companies shined among the brightest, and all have Buy ratings across Wall Street. It is important to remember that no single analyst report should be used as a sole basis for any buying or selling decision.
Amazon
It should come as no surprise that the cyber retail leader would be one of the top beneficiaries of the online shopping spree for the holidays. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) engages in the retail sale of consumer products and subscriptions globally. It sells merchandise and content purchased for resale from third-party sellers through physical and online stores.
The company also manufactures and sells electronic devices, including Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TVs, Rings and Echo and other devices. It provides Kindle Direct Publishing, an online service that allows independent authors and publishers to make their books available in the Kindle Store, and it develops and produces media content.
Amazon also offers programs that enable sellers to sell their products on its websites, as well as its stores, and its programs allow authors, musicians, filmmakers, Twitch streamers, skill and app developers, and others to publish and sell content. Further, the company provides computing, storage, database, analytics, machine learning and other services, as well as fulfillment, advertising, publishing, and digital content subscriptions.
Its Amazon Prime membership program provides free shipping of various items, access to streaming movies and series, and other services.
Goldman Sachs has a $165 target price on Amazon.com stock. The consensus target is just $141, and shares closed on Wednesday at $96.54, up close to 5% on the day.
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