Kathy Wood saw her investments rally in the second half of 2024 after a slow start. The co-founder, CEO and primary stock picker for Arc Invest is hoping to move ahead of the market early this year. Arc opened the first full trading week of 2025 by making some moves.
Wood increased his current stake Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ), GitLab (NASDAQ: GTLB )And Pacific Biosciences of California (NASDAQ: PACB ) on Monday. Let’s take a closer look at Ark’s latest purchases.
The major online retailer doesn’t seem like a bargain. Amazon stock hit an all-time high last month. Shares rose 44% last year, a 4x 11% advance on the net sales it posted in the first nine months of 2024. However, recent analyst notes suggest that Amazon is on the rise.
Scott Devitt at Wedbush raised his price target on the e-tailer to $260 from $250, tapping it as a top pick for the new year. Amazon’s top line doesn’t look very impressive, especially with its own guidance for net sales growth to slow to 7% to 11% for the holiday quarter that ended last week. However, DeWitt’s eye is on expanding margins at Amazon. He is projecting a 24% jump in operating profit at Amazon over the next year, faster than some of the other members of the “.The magnificent seven“Stock.
Devitt’s new price target of $260 represents a 14% upside from current levels. That’s a modest amount of upside, but the Wedbush analyst didn’t set the high-water mark of 2025 updates. Shweta Khajuria at Wolf Research raised her price target on the shares late last week to $270, a 19% upside to where the stock currently stands. Amazon may not look cheap, but Khajuria sees rising prospects through 2025 as catalysts come in faster. DeWitt is encouraged by Amazon’s momentum. Its workhorse Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-hosting business has posted strong sales growth for four consecutive quarters.
Amazon’s annual net sales growth has failed to crack 12% in each of the past three years. Analysts see the same in 2025, but this should continue to be a bottom-line growth story.
Like Amazon, GitLab has been highly ranked in each of the first three trading days of 2025. Unlike Amazon, GitLab investors see their stock experience a 10% decline in 2024. This doesn’t mean that development tools that provide cloud-based software have fallen out of favor.
At least 16 analysts raised their price targets on GitLab after it posted better-than-expected financial results. It was a “beat and rise” performance. The 31% revenue growth for the fiscal third quarter posted in early December may have been less than half the pace it was running two years ago, but it handily topped Wall Street pro estimates. This too Exceeded analyst earnings estimates by 44%, extending its streak of bottom-line beats better than 40% to five consecutive reports. It also raised its guidance for the full fiscal year, indicating that its current quarter is also running ahead of where the market is predicting GitLab’s fiscal fourth quarter.
