It’s easy to forget that stocks are tied to factors that are unique to each company when another Federal Reserve decision is coming up and American politics are making waves in the markets.
What has been going on with Amazon.com shares lately AMZN That’s clear from the 6.19%. A very well received earnings report from the company that runs an online market and provides cloud computing caused its shares to rise 6.2% on Friday.
But once more, even though the stock came close to $200 several times during the session, it did not close above that level. This made a lot of retail traders on the online trading site wallstreetbets very unhappy.
“That $200 dollar ceiling tho. Titanium,” one person wrote. Someone else wrote, “AMZN 200 invisible wall, let me through to Narnia NOW!!!”
It’s not new for people to be angry. The chart below from Bespoke Investment shows that the $200 level also stopped Amazon’s bull run for a few days at the end of July.It’s easy to forget that stocks are tied to factors that are unique to each company when another Federal Reserve decision is coming up and the ups and downs of American politics are shaking up the markets.
What has been going on with Amazon.com shares lately AMZN 6.19 %
shows that to be true. A very well received earnings report from the company that runs an online market and provides cloud computing caused its shares to rise 6.2% on Friday.
However, the stock failed to close above $200 once more, even though it came close several times during the session. This made a lot of retail traders on the online trading site wallstreetbets very unhappy.
“That $200 dollar ceiling tho. Titanium,” one person wrote. Someone else wrote, “AMZN 200 invisible wall, let me through to Narnia NOW!!!”
It’s not new for people to be angry. This chart from Bespoke Investment shows that the $200 level also stopped Amazon’s bull run for a few days at the end of July.
Now, it’s quite common for big round numbers at different times to be ceiling and floor. But they also often ultimately prove flimsy in the face of determined momentum. And from a technical perspective chartists would have been salivating at the message sent by the Amazon.com share price, as it approached its top again after a dip and several weeks of consolidation.
However, there are more than technical factors at play here. The problem for Amazon.com bulls is that it appears founder Jeff Bezos is using the $200 level as the point at which he’s looking to raise cash. A lot of cash.
“In March, it was reported that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos planned to sell up to 25 million shares of AMZN by the end of 2025. When AMZN kept unsuccessfully trying to break through $200 in July, we quickly found out why,” says Bespoke.
Bespoke notes that insider transaction filings showed Bezos seemingly had a limit order to sell shares above $200. As the next chart shows, from July 2 to July 11, Bezos indeed dumped millions of shares a day at an average price just above $200.
“On July 11, the last day that Bezos was said to have sold shares, there were not enough buyers to meet his sell orders, and the stock ended up going down.” Bespoke says, “Since then, there have been no more reported Bezos sales, and the stock price didn’t get close to $200 again until today [Friday].”
Bezos sold more than 8 million items in July, which means he probably still has a lot more of the 25 million to get rid of. Bespoke said that 80 million Amazon.com shares changed hands on Friday, but only 5 million were worth $200 or more. “So we’ll see how many more shares he was able to sell when his next insider sales report is filed,” he said.
Based on what we can see now, $200 looks like it will stay a strong barrier until the Bezos shares clear.
