Analyst Ratings February 6, 2026

Goldman Lowers Amazon Price Target to $280 Amid Heavy Investment Plan

Firm keeps Buy rating as AWS momentum and revenue growth contrast with aggressive capital spending guidance

By Leila Farooq AMZN
Goldman Lowers Amazon Price Target to $280 Amid Heavy Investment Plan
AMZN

Goldman Sachs reduced its 12-month price objective for Amazon.com to $280 from $300 while retaining a Buy recommendation. The firm cited the company’s extensive investment cycle across cloud and eCommerce and expects investors to scrutinize how the planned capital spending will translate into revenue and backlog growth. Amazon’s AWS unit showed re-accelerating growth and strong margins, and the company reported a revenue beat for Q4 2025 even as it slightly missed on EPS.

Key Points

  • Goldman Sachs reduced its price target on Amazon to $280 from $300 but kept a Buy rating.
  • Amazon guided to approximately $200 billion in capital expenditures for fiscal year 2026 while maintaining a low Total Debt to Total Capital ratio of 0.06.
  • AWS showed re-accelerated growth with 35% operating margins and contributed to trailing-twelve-month revenue of $716.92 billion and 12.38% revenue growth.

Goldman Sachs has revised down its price target for Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) to $280.00 from $300.00 but left its Buy rating unchanged. The adjustment comes after Amazon released its fourth-quarter 2025 results and provided forward guidance that highlighted a substantial investment program across its cloud and retail operations.

At the time of the note, Amazon shares were trading near $222.69, a level that InvestingPro’s Fair Value framework characterizes as implying material upside relative to Goldman’s revised target. The research house’s move follows company guidance for fiscal year 2026 capital expenditures of approximately $200 billion, a figure that underscores the scale of the spending cycle Amazon is entering.

Despite the elevated investment plan, Amazon’s balance sheet metrics remain modestly leveraged. The company’s Total Debt to Total Capital sits at 0.06, reflecting a relatively low debt load in relation to its capital base.

Goldman highlighted that Amazon Web Services (AWS) demonstrated a re-acceleration in growth, driven by both AI-related and non-AI workloads. AWS operating margins of 35% exceeded Goldman Sachs’ internal expectations, even after accounting for rising depreciation expenses associated with the company’s capital intensity. The firm’s note situates AWS strength alongside Amazon’s overall performance, which includes reported trailing-twelve-month revenue of $716.92 billion and year-over-year revenue growth of 12.38%.

The research team also observed that demand across Amazon’s commerce and advertising segments continued to show steady compounded growth relative to prior periods. Nonetheless, Goldman warned that the current risk-off market environment could heighten investor sensitivity to elevated capital spending that is not yet matched by commensurate revenue outcomes.

In the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 report, Amazon topped revenue expectations, a positive for investors focused on top-line progress. At the same time, the company marginally missed analysts’ estimates for earnings per share, a shortfall that may invite closer analysis from market participants. The combination of a revenue beat and an EPS miss was followed by a decline in the stock in after-hours trading.

Goldman’s lowered price target, coupled with its maintained Buy rating, frames a tension between optimism about AWS performance and caution about the near-term returns from an aggressive capex trajectory. The firm specifically flagged investor scrutiny over whether elevated capital expenditures will meaningfully improve AWS revenue and backlog growth going forward.


Context note: The details above reflect Goldman Sachs’ published guidance and Amazon’s Q4 2025 reported results, including the company’s fiscal year 2026 capex guidance and its reported financial metrics.

Risks

  • Market sensitivity to higher capital expenditures without immediate revenue impact - this affects investor sentiment across technology and capital-intensive sectors.
  • Slight miss on fourth-quarter 2025 EPS could prompt closer scrutiny from analysts and investors, impacting short-term share price volatility in the broader equity market.
  • Uncertainty about how fiscal year 2026 capital spending will translate into AWS revenue and backlog growth - relevant to cloud computing and enterprise IT spending trends.

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