Investing.com - Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is on the verge of joining Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) as the only U.S. companies with a market capitalization of $1 trillion after Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) boosted its price target for the e-commerce tech giant.
Shares were trading a shade higher at $2,000.95 in premarket trade on Thursday, putting the company’s market capitalization just shy of $975 billion.
The stock would have to hit $2053 to reach the $1 trillion market cap.
Morgan Stanley boosted its price target to $2,500 from $1,800 on Wednesday. It is the highest target out of the 41 analysts who cover Amazon, according to FactSet.
At a $2,500 stock price, Amazon would have a market valuation of about $1.2 trillion.
"We have increasing confidence that Amazon's rapidly growing, increasingly large, high margin revenue streams (advertising, AWS, subscriptions) will drive higher profitability and continued upward estimate revisions," wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak.
Amazon shares are up 65% so far this year vs. the S&P 500's 8% gain. Over the past 12 months, Amazon has gained a whopping 103%, while the S&P 500 has returned 18%.
Earlier this month, Apple was the first company to break through the $1 trillion market cap level, doing so on August 2.
Google parent company Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) are also in the $1 trillion conversation, with market caps in the range of $850 billion.
The likes of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon, Apple, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Google, who make up Wall Street’s so-called 'FAANG' stocks, have propelled stock markets to record highs in 2018, with the Nasdaq reaching the 8,000-point milestone for the first time this week.
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