Ranking the Best "Magnificent Seven" Stocks to Buy for 2026. Here's My No. 6 | The Motley Fool

Amazon ( AMZN +0.47%) is a legitimate powerhouse in two completely different fields. It has the biggest share of the e-commerce market in the U.S., with a market share of more than 37%. It's also the world's biggest cloud computing provider, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) having a 29% market share. The two branches helped propel Amazon to global dominance -- it's a member of the Magnificent Seven grouping of stocks, which represent the seven best-performing publicly traded tech companies in the world. The Magnificent Seven make up 34% of the S&P 500 , so their performance has a significant effect on the overall market. This is the second installment of a seven-article series ranking, in reverse order, the best Magnificent Seven stocks to buy for 2026. Apple took the No. 7 spot on the list . Amazon is a great company, but it has some significant issues that keep it from being rated higher than others on this list. Here's why. Image source: Amazon. About Amazon's e-commerce network Amazon traces its roots back more than three decades. It got its start as an online bookseller and expanded to include music and DVD sales, home improvement products, software, and video games. A major shift in strategy occurred in 2000, when Amazon launched Amazon Marketplace and began allowing third-party, independent sellers to offer goods on its e-commerce network. That helped Amazon expand its reach tremendously. The company says that independent sellers have been responsible for more than $2.5 trillion in sales, and currently make up 60% of sales on Amazon.com. Revenue in the third quarter was $180.17 billion, with $147.16 billion of that coming directly from retail sales. But there's also a huge issue with the e-commerce business -- it's incredibly expensive. Region Q3 2025 Net Sales Q3 2025 Operating Expenses Profit Margin North America $106.27 billion $101.48 billion 4.5% International $40.90 billion $39.70 billion 2.9% Data source: Amazon. It's challenging to run a successful business when the primary revenue source yields such a low profit margin. But trade tensions -- such as President Donald Trump's tariff policies -- are increasing costs for sellers and forcing Amazon to choose between changing suppliers to a country with lower import fees, increasing prices, or lowering its profits. Amazon briefly considered adding a notation to prices on Amazon.com to show how much tariffs cost for each item, but backed off from that idea. Amazon is taking steps to reduce costs wherever possible. CEO Andy Jassy says that the company uses automation in its fulfillment network, deploying more than 1 million robots to increase productivity and speed. But it's undoubtedly a challenging business, and part of the reason why Amazon's stock rose less than 5% so far in 2025. NASDAQ: AMZN Key Data Points About Amazon's cloud services Unquestionably, Amazon's most interesting division right now is AWS . That's why the company's promoting it so heavily in its corporate communications and earnings calls. While Amazon.com has just over a 4% profit margin, Amazon Web Services...

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