News and analysis

In late June, our team of analysts highlighted the growing chances of Cisco's stock price outperformance. We mentioned, in particular, the range of potential price targets from $65 to $73 per share, with the rally expected to accelerate in the summer months, but it all came to less than 6 weeks. Cisco briefly visited $72.55 on August 11 holding above $70 in the following days in anticipation of its quarterly earnings release. After the release that has come out mostly in line with elevated expectations, Cisco has "earned" a bit of a breather, if we may say so.

Cisco did its service; Cisco can go sideways. A kind of flat movement could be expected with partial profit taking along with bullish repositioning at the same time. The initial response led to a 2.5% decline to $68.5 confirming this idea, even though after-hours trading subsequently returned the stock price above $70, recouping all losses. Minor pullbacks and rising waves could alternate over the next few days and later into August. So, we would now look for $62.5 to $65 as a new potential technical support zone, as there is little fundamental reasoning to go down further. Buying all those dips is a more logical scenario. But the market may not hold to these support levels, so that the retracement potential could be much more limited in practice. A gradual move to new and higher targets within the $77.5 to $80 area would be worth keeping in mind.

Moving on to the details of the report, Cisco's EPS (equity per share) added 13.8% YoY, from $0.87 to $0.99, jumping vs last quarter's $0.62. But the latest solid number was fully expected, so that it happened to be only $0.01 better than the average Wall St analyst pool estimate of $0.98. Quarterly revenue came out at $14.67 billion against the consensus number of $14.62 billion, with both figures being more than $1 billion above last year's result for the same season, but missed Cisco's all-time record high of August 2023 at $15.2 billion. The company's forward guidance for investors included Q1 2026 EPS of $0.97 to $0.99, slightly better than nominal consensus of $0.97, on revenue of $14.65 billion to $14.85 billion, also better than average analyst pool forecast of $14.65 billion. There are no big surprises to smash the market minds here. For the financial year of 2026, the company expects EPS of $4.00-$4.06, just the range around the analyst consensus of $4.03. The same rather routine but happy end is projected for its 2026 revenue of $59.00 billion to $60.00 billion, right around the consensus bet for $59.50 billion. Cisco is actually following a kind of historical trend of slightly beating the crowd's hopes, which are traditionally high but doable.

Producing and upgrading AI-related networking equipment for a nearly doubled number of customers (compared to the company's own initial expectations) to move workloads into the cloud environment was cited as the main driver. AI infrastructure orders exceeded $800 million in the quarter, providing the total for the year to exceed $2 billion. Cisco introduced over 20 new products in the segment of AI innovations. The company also entered the Internet of Things industry at the right time. Given all this, but also the fact that Cisco is already up more than 10% in the last 3 months and added more than 50% in the previous 12 months, higher goals for the asset look appropriate, but markets may need to give Cisco some breathing space before resuming the rally.

Binance Coin (BNB) is up 7.4% this week to $861.00, outperforming the broader crypto market where Bitcoin (BTC) has added 2.6% to $121,836. BNB broke above the $800 resistance in late July and successfully retested this level in August, with prices now targeting the $900 mark and potentially the trend resistance at $1,000, which may serve as a temporary pause point. The steady uptrend reflects the coin’s growing popularity, supported by a broadly positive crypto backdrop. Bitcoin has finally cleared the $117,000–$120,000 resistance zone, setting a new all-time high at $124,544. If BTC holds above $120,000, its rally could accelerate toward $155,000–$165,000, while BNB may continue climbing toward $1,000.

Amazon stock price is gradually gaining momentum again. The bullish rebound from its lows at nearly $211.50 ten days ago up to the closing price at nearly $224.50 on Wednesday is a clear confirmation of resuming the positive stance by the crowd after a plop down from the direct vicinity of historical peaks around $235 hot on the trail of the e-commerce giant's quarterly report released on July 31. It seems that every adequate investor already realised at that moment that an excuse behind the sharp markdown was not worth a straw from the very beginning. Not only were the Q2 figures solid, but Amazon also projected its current quarter's revenue well above consensus expectations. Meanwhile, a hard-to-discover weakness in the non-core cloud segment of Amazon's business was rather well-fingered and thus overplayed. Now when those temporary lower have been properly bought out by all interested parties, market price justice is being restored.

The new driver for this was the announcement of adding perishable foods to same-day delivery yesterday, on August 13. This gave the asset price an extra 1.4% gain within the last trading session to let it almost touch $225, while consistently growing price lows have been drawn on the charts since August 4. Looks like a good technical sign for the next crowded purchase very soon! Amazon's online sales could grow even more after this, as it allowed Amazon Prime's loyalty program members to order for free even more items like milk, strawberries or frozen dinners alongside electronics to the doorstep of a consumer to challenge the same kind of services by Walmart, Instacart or Uber Eats, as the three most popular rival examples in the US. Shares of Instacart, were down 11.5% over the same day.

Amazon plans to occupy 2,300 cities with this new service by the end of 2025. They are reportedly investing as much as $4 billion to bring same-day and next-day deliveries to 4,000 rural communities. Those who pay $14.99 monthly or $139 annually for being part of Amazon Prime will not pay an extra fee for the new service, while ordinary shoppers without a Prime membership can also use this new offer if paying $12.99 regardless of their order size. On the old Amazon Prime conditions, its members had to pay an additional $9.99 per month to receive perishable grocery orders if the sum of the order was above $35. Walmart+ now costs $98 per year, but Amazon is collecting its own client base and having its own advantages. So the competition will continue, of course, but Amazon also lowered its minimum order threshold to just $25 to threaten rivals in the field of one-off purchases.

Going back to the story with recent quarterly figures, Amazon's major business of delivering goods is literally thriving. The company posted its online store sales of $61.5 billion, an 11% annual gain. Pushing suppliers to pull forward inventories to ensure vast supply on cheaper prices contributed to fresh absolute records for the spring and summer season, with equity per share soaring to $1.68 this time against $1.25 on August 1,2024 and $1.32 in preliminary consensus estimates for the last quarter of 2025. Because of Amazon's focus on making its prices for consumers as low as possible, and its delivery time as small as they can, with Amazon's variety of products they are holding a number one position as the globally most popular e-retailer. Amazon's advertising earnings are also growing faster than expected, up 23% to reach $15.7 billion. For Q3 2025, Amazon expects its net sales between $174.0 billion and $179.5 billion vs Wall Street's preliminary consensus of $173 billion. A great progress in their forward guidance for the public!

As to its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS profit margins contracted to 32.9% from as much as 39.5% in Q1 and 35.5% in Q2 2024. But that was probably the result of enhancing investments into the AI infrastructure to earn even more money later. I don’t see any tragedy in this fact, therefore and I could mention launching Amazon's AI-based products like Alexa+, DeepFleet and Bedrock AgentCore here. Now, it seems, the market majority agrees with such an opinion of mine. And that just means we'll go step by step together to $250 for starters. And for the main course we'll eat $275, I bet. AWS still offered a 17.5% surplus in its sales to $30.9 billion, which was close to $30.77 billion, widely expected. Well, sales for Microsoft’s Azure competing cloud service rose 39%, while Google Cloud added 32% YoY, but for me, this is the reason to buy and hold all those three advancing stocks. Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy noted in his post-earnings speech that Amazon’s cloud business will "get better each quarter," as demand is outpacing capacity and the AI efforts are only starting to "play out" as soon as it improves customers' experiences and cloud products' efficiency. I also strongly believe in this.

Litecoin (LTC) is up 6.6% this week to $132, outperforming the broader crypto market where Bitcoin (BTC) has gained just 0.7% to $119,693. The rally is fuelled by a 12% monthly surge in active addresses on the Litecoin network and a growing share of long-term holders, which adds to the coin’s stability. Open interest in LTC futures has also peaked at $1.2 billion, providing additional support. Prices broke above the $120 resistance in early August and are now approaching the key $140 level. A breakout here could pave the way for a move toward $160, although strong pullbacks are likely at that point.