Amazon Stock: What Might Donald Trump Actually Be Able To Do?

Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) stock settled in for a second consecutive day of declines on Thursday following President Trump’s latest tweet about the online retailer. It seemed to confirm what we heard earlier this week, which was that the president was said to be “obsessed” with Amazon. However, analysts have been quick to try to calm investor fears for Amazon stock by saying there’s little the U.S. government could really do to cause problems for the company.

Regulatory risks start to weigh on Amazon stock, thanks to Trump

Amazon stock was a heavy weight on the S&P 500’s consumer discretionary sector on Thursday, as the company accounts for roughly 20% of the sector’s market capitalization. Deutsche Bank analyst Lloyd Walmsley said in a note this week that the regulatory risks related to Trump’s views of the company are mostly just headline risks for Amazon stock with no real impact on the company’s business. In fact, he called the concerns “significantly less concerning for investors” than the data concerns fellow FANG constituent Facebook is dealing with.

Among the potential issues that were raised are antitrust concerns, sales tax and potential problems pertaining to the U.S. Postal Service. Walmsley said it didn’t surprise him that Amazon stock plunged on the back of these concerns because of what’s happening to Facebook in connection with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. He does see “some small risk” that President Trump could criticize the online retailer using “the bully pulpit” and possibly even place some roadblocks in its way.

However, he emphasized that the company isn’t as fragile as Facebook is right now because he thinks it would be very difficult for the Trump administration to really change anything for Amazon. As a result, he sees Trump’s latest tweet as nothing more than a distraction that’s been amplified by what’s happening to Facebook. He sees the recent pullback in Amazon stock as a buying opportunity and maintains his Buy rating and $1,650 price target.