Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) stock has dropped 10% today (Friday) prompting the Nasdaq to implement a short-sale restriction on the stock.
The short-sale restriction is triggered when a stock falls 10% in one trading session from the previous session's closing price. The restriction aims to prevent share-price manipulation by short sellers.
The sell-off began after Thursday's earnings release when AMZN reported earnings per share (EPS) of $0.51 on revenue of $25.59 billion, which was well below analysts' estimates of $0.66 per share on revenue of $26.06 billion.
But analysts' projections were lofty. The consensus EPS projection was an incredible 268% higher than what AMZN had posted the previous year.
In fact, yesterday Amazon reported an increase of 148% in EPS year over year. And AMZN reported $74.45 billion in revenue for the entirety of 2013, which was 22% higher than in 2012.
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Why to Buy AMZN Stock
A minor blip in stock performance would have been one thing, but a 10% sell-off in one day following yesterday's earnings is surprising. Obviously, Amazon fell short of expectations, but it still posted strong numbers.
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According to Money Morning's Defense & Tech Specialist Michael Robinson, this 10% drop offers an excellent buy-in point for investors.
Robinson appeared on FOX Business' "Varney & Co." today and was asked what he'd do with Amazon stock if it keeps falling - maybe as low as $350.
"[$350 a share] is a great price for Amazon. It's an excellent company. I'm not sure that Wall Street's expectations were in alignment with reality," Robinson said. "What no one's talking about is the 53% increase in the division that includes cloud sales to more than $1.2 billion, which is enormous. Overall I think it was a pretty good report."
In 2013, AMZN stock posted an impressive 63% gain. The stock has come back to Earth a bit in 2014 - currently trading at $364 as of 2:00 pm EST today.
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