TLDR
- TD Cowen reiterated a Buy rating and $300 price target on Amazon, naming it a preferred large-cap pick.
- Barclays also reiterated an Overweight rating and $300 price target, citing AI-driven AWS growth.
- Amazon stock rose roughly 2.8% in pre-market trading on Monday, March 23, 2026.
- The OpenAI deal brings total AWS committed spend to $138 billion over seven to eight years, per Barclays.
- Anthropic saw a 35% rise in annual recurring revenue in just weeks during Q1 2026, boosted by Claude Code and Cowork.
Amazon is getting some love on Wall Street this Monday morning, and the stock is responding.
AMZN jumped roughly 2.8% in pre-market trading on March 23, 2026, after two separate analyst notes landed backing the e-commerce and cloud giant.
TD Cowen analyst John Blackledge reiterated his Buy rating and kept his $300 price target in place. He named Amazon a top large-cap pick heading into the next year.
Barclays followed with its own Overweight reiteration and the same $300 target, pointing to a string of AI-related tailwinds building behind AWS.
With AMZN trading near $205 at the time of writing, both price targets imply roughly 46% upside from current levels.
AWS Expected to Reaccelerate
AWS is the centerpiece of both bullish notes. TD Cowen expects cloud growth to “reaccelerate through 2025 and into 2026 as demand for AI workloads increases,” after earlier pressure from capacity constraints.
Barclays took a more specific angle. The bank highlighted Amazon’s deal with OpenAI, which it says brings total committed AWS spend to $138 billion over seven to eight years.
Barclays expects the AWS backlog to move above $350 billion in the next quarter as that deal gets reflected in the numbers.
The bank also raised its 2027 AWS revenue estimate by 5% and now expects AWS revenue growth to hit 34% in Q3 2026 before it starts to moderate.
Anthropic is adding fuel to that story too. The AI startup saw its annual recurring revenue jump 35% in a matter of weeks in Q1 2026, driven by Claude Code and Cowork products.
Advertising and Retail Add to the Case
TD Cowen also flagged Amazon’s advertising business as a key profit driver. The firm expects ad revenue to grow at a “high teens” pace year over year in 2026, powered by sponsored products, demand-side platform growth, and an expanding Prime Video ad business.
Amazon’s retail segment is also improving structurally. The firm pointed to record delivery speeds, same-day expansion into perishables, and investment in rural markets as drivers of margin improvement.
TD Cowen estimates Amazon’s 2026 operating income will reach roughly $104 billion.
CEO Andy Jassy recently said the company has line of sight to $600 billion in revenue by 2036. That would imply an 11% compound annual growth rate from Barclays’ 2028 base, and the bank noted that forecast may prove conservative.
Amazon’s current market cap sits at around $2.2 trillion. Revenue grew 12.4% over the last twelve months.
Amazon recently completed a €14.47 billion euro-denominated bond sale, with maturities ranging from 2028 to 2064.
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