Bull v. Bear: AMZN Seeks Leadership AI, Ecommerce & Space

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:01]Welcome back to Fast Market here on Schwab Network. Shares of Amazon are slightly lower after a setback for its satellite internet ambitions. Yesterday, Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded during a test in Florida. Amazon had planned to use New Glenn as soon as next week to deploy four dozen satellites per mission in a bid to accelerate its buildout to compete with Starling. The timing is critical with Amazon seeking an FCC extension as it races to meet a July 30th deadline to have roughly half of its planned satellite network in operation. While shares of Amazon are lagging today, that stock is up 3% this month. All right, time now for the tugof-war on Amazon. For that, let's welcome back in our co-host Tom White and Kevin Green. Guys, it is bull versus bear time. Before we get to your example, trace, we got to get each of your thoughts on Amazon. KG, I'll start with you. Your take. Yeah, I mean the the Blue Origin situation, it's unfortunate, but at the end of the day, there is a perceived risk when it comes to space exploration. So, you're going to see an initial reaction to the downside. Uh, but over time, the market's going to shrug that off because Amazon is really uh the bread and butter of it right now is AWS as well as its retail business. And those are both still relatively strong here. So, uh it's an unfortunate situation. Uh but this administration, I do have to give them a lot of credit. they have been really flexible when it comes to trying to expedite a lot of these uh space exploration companies like a SpaceX getting those approvals so they can uh launch uh satellites into orbit a lot quicker than what we've seen in the past. I'm sure Amazon is going to see or Blue Origin is going to see a little bit of a setback here uh but maybe not one that's going to take them years in order for them to recover and I think there's probably some optimism there and it's a small slice of the overall vision of this company uh over the next two three years.

[00:01:43]>> Okay, great points there. Tom, your thoughts.

[00:01:46]>> Uh, you take a look at Amazon, uh, just the different silos that they have for re revenue generation. I mean, if you look at the chip side of their business, uh, you know, they talked about that 40% growth quarter over quarter last, uh, last earnings at the end of April. Then you throw in AWS, uh, that growth was up over 28% and it's supposed to accelerate to over 30% growth in the coming quarters. So, yeah, we've seen that reaceleration over the last few quarters in AWS. You throw in the fact that the consumer is still out there spending uh despite the fact that oil prices are higher uh and confidence levels and sentiment numbers are down from the consumer. Uh you know, and then you throw in advertising that was up 70 up to $70 billion in the full fiscal year.

[00:02:31]Uh that was growth uh from 50 billion uh from the previous quarter. Uh so you start looking at the the areas where they continue to expand and Andy Jasse I think as a leader has done a great job in you know controlling all these different segments within their business and still showing solid and out you know outsized growth in all of them as they move forward. Capex spend yeah that's been a concern from some investors but the stock's only a couple percent off its all-time highs. It just feels like, you know, uh, you know, the different segments with that make up Amazon at this point starting to level the playing field where they're not relying on the retail side or they're not relying just on AWS growth. Uh, at this point, they've got a bunch of different levers to pull here and that's why the stock has done so well.

[00:03:23]>> All right, let's get into the example trades. KG, let's start out with yours.

[00:03:27]What's your approach today?

[00:03:29]Well, uh, if you're kind of looking at it from a chart standpoint, we do have a lower high taking place right now. We've been leveraging the 20-day moving average as an area of support, but we are also making lower highs on the RSI.

[00:03:39]And for whatever reason, if you look at the seasonality over the last 5 years, uh, starting in June, we usually do see a pullback within this name. Now, it doesn't seem like that's a broad market situation. This seems like it's just company specific. Yes, you have some headline issues as well. So I'm actually looking at at for an example trade a pullback and trying to retest that 20day moving average in blue here. So looking at the June monthly expiration June 18th 265 puts going outright going long outright on this at $4.85. So the max loss on this trade is $485. Max profit is $26,15.

[00:04:15]That's if the stock goes to zero. We have bigger problems if Amazon's trading at zero by the time of expiration here.

[00:04:21]and break even point is going to be $216.15.

[00:04:25]This is a structured trade uh where you want to be able to identify your take-profit level as well as your stop-loss level and because you do need a move here within the next 18 days or so. Uh so you will have time value erosion going against you for this trade, but any type of sharp pullback to that 20-day or even a break below that, this trade may be able to be profitable.

[00:04:47]So, I'm curious to see what Tom thinks about this trade setup given the technicals as well as maybe some of the near-term risk for this man.

[00:04:54]>> Yeah, we've seen uh you know with the stock at these elevated levels just below record highs that implied volatility levels are down. So, Kevin's example trade here to the bearish side uh may make sense if you think the stock's going to fall over the next basically three weeks. You got 20 days in this uh let's break it down. June 18th monthly options, you buy the 265 put, you pay roughly about a 485 debit.

[00:05:17]Probably pay about 420 right now because the stock has moved a little bit higher uh today as uh as equities reach session highs here. But you pay that 485 debit, there's your risk, 485 bucks per spread.

[00:05:29]As Kevin mentioned, uh the break even just above the $260 level. That break even uh is about 4 and a.5% below the current share price. So, as KG mentioned, you need a move to the downside for this thing to start to expand. But if you do get a move to the downside, what historically happens is implied volatility levels start to go up also. And that may expand the price of this uh straight put purchase uh here for downside exposure uh on this one.

[00:06:00]Now, I mentioned you need about a 4 and a.5% move to get below that break even.

[00:06:06]uh the probabilities are against a trade like this, but at the same time, it's still risk defining. You know exactly what your downside is, and it gives you that flexibility as far as trade management goes because you don't have to wait the full 20 days to potentially profit or get out of this trade. If the market's open and this stock maybe goes down to 260 and this thing expands to six bucks or seven or eight, it gives you that opportunity that maybe, hey, I can close a portion or all of it if the market's open. So it does have that flexibility as far as trade management.

[00:06:38]Buying a straight put with lower implied volatility also lowers the risk of this type of trade because exttrinsic option premium contracts when you've got implied volatility levels uh where they are which is about 24% on an IV percentile level. So in the bottom 1/4 of what we've seen implied volatility over the last 52 weeks in Amazon. So there's Kevin's setup to the downside.

[00:07:03]Uh, I'm going to flip the script here. I went a little bit more bullish, but instead of just buying a straight call, which would be a bullish type of strategy, I looked at uh offsetting some of the cost. So, I looked at a bullish call vertical here. Went out to that July cycle. So, also giving myself some duration on this one. It means I'm going to have to pay more for this type of vertical, but it also gives me more time in it, and that's why it costs more. But going out to the July monthly options, buy in the 270 strike call in the money by a couple bucks here. Uh it's got that higher delta. That's a bullish portion of this vertical. Then against it, sell the 295 strike call. So a bullish $25 wide call vertical. You're paying roughly about a $9 debit. You might have to pay a little bit more, maybe 920 because the stock has moved a little bit higher. But the debit you pay is your risk on this one also. $900 per spread on this one, but that can expand to $2,500 if it goes up to above the 295 level. Now, why did I pick the 295 strike? Well, you go out to the July monthly options that expire in 49 days.

[00:08:07]You got a plus or minus 26 $27 move that the option market's pricing in. So, that lines up approximately near that 295 strike. So Kevin bullish $25 wide call vertical. I'm offsetting some of my costs on this directional uh vertical, but the same effect goes in. You know, you pay a little bit less when implied volatility levels are lower, but you definitely need to move to the upside on this one to that break even at 279.

[00:08:38]>> And that's pretty much where the highs were uh back in uh let's say early May here, Tom. So you're leveraging that short call position to offset the long put the long call that you're buying. Uh but you also have a decent riskreward ratio. It's a traditional riskreward ratio. You try to get above, you know, that 2:1 uh if you could. Uh but you do need a little bit of a move, but you also have time. It will not erode as quickly and you kind of uh once again kind of box in some of that theta decay by selling the upside call. But you do need a move, but the primary trend has been to the upside at least for now. If you do continue to see a break above those highs and you still have a lot of this enthusiasm when it comes to the technology trade just in general, Amazon could be a beneficiary of that and this trade also gives you some flexibility to to manage uh the trade in the event that it does go against you. Right. If it goes uh you know to the downside, it won't be as aggressive as if you were just going just straight long the call here.

[00:09:31]>> Yep. uh and uh you know you make a good point the flexibility as far as trade management. You don't have to wait uh you know the 40 some odd days to uh you know close this trade. You can close it the market's open starts to expand in price prior uh to expiration on this one about about a two 2.3% move to the upside to get above that break even at 279 on this one. So there you go, Diane.

[00:09:54]Both strategies taking advantage of lower implied volatility uh with that flexibility as far as trade management, but uh definitely opposite sides of the spectrum on Amazon.

[00:10:04]>> Yeah, indeed. And one of the things that stands out to me is what KG said. We have bigger problems if Amazon's going to zero.