Analyst Hikes FAANG Stock Price Target on Gross Profit Hopes

Amazon has been consolidating on the charts so far this calendar year, but analysts see more upside ahead

Shares of e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) are moving higher in pre-market trading,up 0.9% at $1,686.10, after Evercore ISI hiked its price target on the FAANG stock to $1,965 from $1,800. The brokerage cited gross profit as a "more important indicator" than revenue growth, noting that Amazon's "gross profit is expected to grow ~400bps faster than revenue... over the next three years."

Evercore's new price target represents 17.5% upside to Friday's close of $1,671.73, but lies below the stock's average 12-month price target of $2,079.58. What's more, all but two of the 26 brokerage firms covering AMZN sport "buy" or "strong buy" recommendations.

Digging into options data, AMZN's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.85 lands in the low 9th percentile of its annual range. In other words, this suggests that near-term options traders are more call-biased than usual right now -- echoing the upbeat mood among analysts.

On the charts, Amazon stock has been edging primarily sideways since early January, but the stock has recently caught a boost from its 40-day moving average. Longer term, the FAANG concern has added 9.7% over the past 12 months, with another line of guided support emerging at its 320-day moving average.