The Ultimate Growth Stock to Buy With $5,000 Right Now

Source The Motley Fool

Key Points

  • Amazon is seeing great operating leverage in its e-commerce business.

  • Growth at AWS is starting to accelerate.

  • The stock is cheap both from a historical perspectaive and compared to retail peers.

  • 10 stocks we like better than Amazon ›

Growth stocks have been the driving force of the market for more than a decade, and there is no reason to think that this trend can't continue well into the future. If a company's stock is going to produce outsized gains over an extended period of time, it is generally because it's strongly growing its revenue and earnings at a nice clip.

If you've got $5,000 and are looking to invest in a blue chip growth stock right now, one of my first choices would be Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

An e-commerce and cloud computing leader

Amazon is the market share leader in both e-commerce and cloud computing, and it is also one of the world's largest digital advertising platforms as well. The company has a long history of investing big to win big, and that continues today.

The company became the dominant player in e-commerce by building out the world's largest logistics and fulfillment network on the planet. This allows consumers to quickly receive purchases at their doorsteps at just the click of a button. However, Amazon hasn't just stopped there. It continues to work to drive efficiencies and speed up delivery times through its use of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI).

Amazon is the largest manufacturer and operator of robots in the world. It is continually pushing the advancement of robotics, and last year introduced the first robot with a sense of touch, which can handle items that most robots can't.

Its fleet of robots, meanwhile, is now all coordinated by its Deepfleet AI model to ensure they operate in coordination with each other and in the most efficient manner. Meanwhile, the company is using AI to also help speed up delivery and save costs. Through AI, the company can predict which fulfillment centers are the best places to store items so that they are closest to their final delivery destinations. It's also utilizing AI to optimize delivery routes and assist drivers in locating hard-to-find drop-off locations, such as those in large apartment complexes.

Amazon is also using AI within its e-commerce business to help sellers more easily create listings and help advertisers design better ad campaigns and target users. Amazon has grown to become the third-largest digital advertising company behind Alphabet and Meta Platforms, and its high-gross margin sponsored ad business is growing at a brisk pace despite its large size. Last quarter, its ad business revenue rose 24% to $17.7 billion.

Overall, these initiatives are leading Amazon's e-commerce business to see strong operating leverage, with profitability growth greatly outpacing revenue growth. This could be seen in Q3, when its North American segment revenue jumped 11%, while its adjusted operating income climbed 28%.

Meanwhile, Amazon's biggest revenue driver is coming from its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is both Amazon's fast-growing segment and its most profitable. Like others in the space, AWS is benefiting from the insatiable demand for compute power and related services tied to AI.

Amazon is starting to see its cloud computing revenue growth start to accelerate, up 20% last quarter, and that growth acceleration should continue into 2026. The company just opened a large data center exclusively for Anthropic using its own custom chips, and it also recently signed a seven-year, $38 billion deal with OpenAI to supply it with computing power using Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs). AWS has been capacity-constrained and is ramping up its capital expenditures (capex) to build its data center capacity to meet growing AI demand.

Person delivering a package.

Image source: Getty Images.

An attractively valued stock

In addition to seeing strong e-commerce operating leverage and robust AWS growth, Amazon's stock is also attractively valued. The stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of around 25 2026 analyst estimates. This is cheap both on a historical basis and versus retail peers like Walmart and Costco, which both carry over 40 times multiples.

Given its valuation, as well as its earnings and revenue growth outlook, Amazon is a great stock to buy with $5,000 or any amount right now. With that amount, you should be able to pick up around 20 shares.

Should you buy stock in Amazon right now?

Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this:

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*Stock Advisor returns as of January 21, 2026.

Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Costco Wholesale, and Walmart. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Disclaimer: For information purposes only. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
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