Nasdaq AMZN Amazon

The Nasdaq was set to hit a new high at the open on Wednesday as falling Treasury yields lifted tech-heavy growth stocks, while investors focused on the Federal Reserve's minutes from the June meeting to gauge the trajectory of policy support going forward.

In a market flirting with all-time highs across several indexes, bargains have become harder to find. Consequently, finding stocks that could double one's money within a few years also appears more difficult as the likelihood of a market downturn rises.

The Nasdaq futures hit a record high on Wednesday as a fall in Treasury yields supported tech-heavy growth stocks, while investors focused on the Federal Reserve's minutes from the June meeting to gauge the trajectory of policy support going forward.

The first half of 2021 was a strong one for the overall stock market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite benchmark indices producing total returns of 14.1%, 16.5%, and 14.2%, respectively. However, the rally hasn't exactly been universal –

GameStop (NYSE: GME) started the whole Reddit-fueled "meme stock" trend earlier this year when the video game store operator spiked by as much as 1,750% over a period of roughly two weeks in January. Two of our experts, longtime Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, and chief g

The arena for ecommerce merchant integration is heating up, and the competition is fierce. Consumer online spending trends have exploded due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, individuals are less suspicious of, and more apt to use, alternative payment methods. The top leader in this space, PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL), wants to transform itself into more of a “SuperApp” and less of just a way to pay online. (See PayPal stock charts on TipRanks)  

Reporting on this new orientation for the company is Colin Sebastian of Robert W. Baird & Co., who wrote that one of the key growth influences for PayPal is merchant integration with digital wallets. This is true as well for the company's competition, as he added, “The number of e-commerce sites integrating with wallets, including PayPal, Apple Pay (AAPL), Google Pay (GOOGL) and Amazon Pay (AMZN), more than doubled from June 2020 to June 2021.”  

Sebastian assigned a Buy rating on the stock, and declared a price target of $315. This target would reflect a potential 12-month upside of 7.64%. 

The five-star analyst mentioned that a reorientation to a “SuperApp” structure (a fully vertically integrated app providing a plethora of services) would allow for more monetization possibilities and consumer engagement.  

Although PayPal may be ahead of the pack in the “wallet wars,” Apple Pay is seeing accelerating growth, and even Shopify (SHOP) wishes to jump into the mix. In order to stay relevant, PayPal will have to continue exercising its opportunities for expansion.  

Near-term downsides amount to a slowdown in current consumer trends due to the fading pandemic.  However, the previous year and a half had seen a meteoric acceleration in online shopping, thus Sebastian did not shift his fundamental view of the healthy company.  

Sebastian is expecting a slight uptick in revenue for 2022, and as such raised his price target. 

On TipRanks, PYPL has an analyst rating consensus of Strong Buy, based on 21 Buy and 3 Hold ratings. The average PayPal price target is $317.87, suggesting a possible 12-month upside of 8.62%. PayPal closed Tuesday trading at $292.64 per share.  

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analyst. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment. 

Retail investors have become a force in the stock market. Now more than ever, even Wall Street's finest look closely at what ordinary investors are doing on the Robinhood app and at other retail-oriented brokerage companies.

Shares of tech giant Amazon (AMZN) jumped 4.7% on July 6 to close at $3,675.74 after the U.S. Department of Defence (DOD) scrapped a $10 billion cloud contract with Microsoft (MSFT) that both companies have been fighting over for the past 20 months.

According to Reuters, the U.S. government will launch a new cloud-computing contract inviting bids from numerous companies, including Amazon and Microsoft.

In November 2019, Microsoft defeated Amazon and won the lucrative Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud, or JEDI contract, which was awarded to modernize the Pentagon’s information technology operations over a period of 10 years.

Amazon challenged the Pentagon’s contract to Microsoft, saying that the result of the award process was unfair and was influenced by U.S. President Donald Trump's political bias against Amazon.

In January 2020, Amazon filed a motion to halt the deal between its rival Microsoft and the DOD until the court made a decision on its protest.

Over the next several months, a legal battle ensued between Amazon and the DOD. In April 2020, the regulators said that it could not determine whether the Trump administration influenced the award to Microsoft. A year later, in April 2021, a judge refused to abandon Amazon's claims.

Microsoft and Amazon were not the only companies disputing the contract. In August 2018, Oracle (ORCL) filed a protest after the DOD decided to award the contract to a single company instead of many eligible contenders for the contract.

However, Oracle’s protest was dismissed by the regulators explaining that the single-company award was in the best interest of the government’s national security.

Jefferies analyst Brent Thill recently reiterated a Buy rating and the price target of $4,200 (14.3% upside potential) on the stock.

Consensus among analysts is a Strong Buy based on 30 Buys. The average Amazon price target of $4,320 implies 17.5% upside potential to current levels.

Amazon scores a “Perfect 10” on TipRanks’ Smart Score rating system, indicating that the stock has strong potential to outperform market expectations.

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At least three private equity groups armed with foreign cash have lined up to do battle over Morrisons, a British supermarket with a big property portfolio and a deal with Amazon that could help scale-up its lagging online offering.

As Virgin Galactic finalizes plans for founder Richard Branson to join five others on a test flight to the edge of space on July 11, the British billionaire said his wife may be nervous about the launch but he himself wasn't the least bit afraid.

Tuesday brought some turbulence to Wall Street as investors weighed the potential impact of economic sluggishness on the stock market. The Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) rose slightly to hit new records once again, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) and

French online home improvement retailer ManoMano reached $2.6 billion in valuation after a $355 million fundraising led by investment firm Dragoneer, it said on Tuesday.

Stocks returned from the holiday weekend somewhat sluggishly. Slight declines on Tuesday snapped win streaks for a couple major indexes, though the Nasdaq managed to claw out another new high.

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are their own.)

What happened Shares of eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) gained 15.3% last month, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The rally, which was spurred by a series of developments, not only unwound a couple of sizable pullbacks the stock suffered earlier in the year, but

The blue-chip Dow slipped 1% on Tuesday, as investors dumped economy-linked value stocks and moved into growth-focused sectors, while a regulatory crackdown by Beijing hammered shares of several U.S.-listed Chinese firms.

The U.S. Defense Department canceled its $10 billion JEDI cloud-computing project on Tuesday and will seeks bids on a new contract, saying in a statement that tech giants Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com are the only providers "capable of meeting the department's requirements."

In this episode of Industry Focus: Energy, Motley Fool auto specialist John Rosevear joins the show to break down the whirlwind of bad news that's hit Lordstown Motors (NASDAQ: RIDE) over the past month. And he shares his thoughts on a variety of other auto-related news, includin

At least three private equity groups armed with foreign cash have lined up to do battle over Morrisons, a British supermarket with a big property portfolio and a deal with Amazon that could help scale-up its lagging online offering.

Check Out These Top Robinhood Stocks In The Stock Market TodayLooking for the best Robinhood stocks to buy in the stock market today? If you answered yes, you’re not alone. There are a number of factors why retail investors are glued to the popular trading app. For one, Rob