Old news Pete, although the author's point (Amazon has been
the target of a short squeeze) is likely correct (the article
is dated July 8), some of his numbers are wrong. He cites
a 7M share float, but a review of their pre-14A filing, and
the company's own statements indicate that the float is in
the 11 to 15M range. Also, the most recent short interest
figures indicate that short interest backed off a bit in July
to about 7M shares. Finally, the institutional ownership
is about 15.4%, or 7.35M shares, which is a noticeable percentage
of the float and to a degree debunks the myth that Amazon
is held by many small investors. From the pre-14A filing
in mid-may there were 304 shareholders of record in Amazon,
and other sources indicate about 55 of them are institutions.
subtracting out insiders, employees, etc., I'd estimate there
were about 200 individual investors at that time, and on
average they held about 20K shares each. Maybe that changed
post-split a month/so later, difficult to say. The average
institution held about 120,000 shares, fyi. Anyway, I'd say
that the data doesn't necessarily support the idea that
AMZN is widely held by many small investors.
I suppose that if AMZN wanted to increase the number of
individuals that own the stock, they'd split, maybe 3:1,
but they do so at their own peril, given the theory
that current high valuations are simply the result of a
short squeeze and the stock price moving too far too fast. |
