Dueling Analysts on Amazon.com (AMZN)

We have dueling analysts on leading online retailer Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN). Yesterday afternoon, Citi came out and slashed estimates and its price target on the stock. Today, Barclays Capital upgraded Amazon.

Citi said the 10% jump in the stock yesterday was related to a positive Cyber Monday number issued by comScore, which showed online spending jumped 15% for the important shopping day. Citi said investors enthusiasm was misplaced. They said what investors should be focusing on is the fact that comScore is predicting 0% Nov-Dec year-over-year online retail growth. Citi lowered its Q4 revenue estimate by 7% to $6.1 billion, which is just above the $6 billion low end of Amazon.com's guidance, but below the Street at $6.5 billion. The firm also lowered GAAP EPS estimates from $0.40 to $0.34, which is below the Street at $0.40. Citi also lowered '09 revenue estimates 5% to $20.26B and GAAP EPS from $1.50 to $1.36. The firm kept their Hold rating on AMZN.

Barclays on the other hand was very bullish on Amazon.com this morning. The analyst there said the company's competitive position is strengthening in the current downturn. They expect Amazon.com to continue to gain share of both overall retail and e-commerce. Barclays upgraded AMZN from Equal-Weight to Overweight with a $54 price target.

There was also an article in The Wall Street Journal today talking about e-book reader Kindle being sold out at Amazon.com after Oprah Winfrey recommended it. The sell-out happened before Cyber Monday and more of the devices won't be available until mid-February, at the earliest. Amazon thought it had plenty in stock, but the Oprah tout changed that.