Amazon.com is the leading U.S. e-commerce retailer and among the top e-commerce sites globally. Amazon.com also includes Amazon Web Services (AWS), the global leader in cloud-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platforms. The company's Prime membership platform is a key online retail differentiator, providing customers with free shipping (after an annual fee) along with exclusive media content (music, video, audible books, etc.). The company's Kindle reader and Alexa-based Echo and Dot digital voice assistants are category leaders.

Stocks are comfortably in the green at midday on Friday, led by a strong jobs report and earnings reports that are often ahead of expectations. Guidance on the impact (or not) of tariffs remains the wild card. On the jobs front, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the U.S. economy generated 177,000 nonfarm jobs in April, above our near-consensus forecast of 130,000. March's payrolls were revised lower by 43,000 and February by 15,000. The April result and the revisions to past results raised the three-month average to 155,000 from 152,000. Nonfarm payrolls are one of the indicators that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) says it watches closely in assessing whether the U.S. is in a recession.

Amazon is the leading online retailer and marketplace for third party sellers. Retail related revenue represents approximately 75% of total, followed by Amazon Web Services' cloud computing, storage, database, and other offerings (15%), advertising services (5% to 10%), and other the remainder. International segments constitute 25% to 30% of Amazon's non-AWS sales, led by Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

Why are stocks moving back and forth at the speed of light but not really making any net progress? The answer is simple: the major indices are in a vacuum. Indeed, the S&P 500 (SPX) has oscillated violently between 4,835 and 5,500 since April 3. And, of course, prices are being pushed around by whatever the headlines of the day happen to be. Because the SPX basically crashed from 5,500 to 4,835 in only a couple of days, there is no chart support or chart resistance in this region. So price can move easily in the area with little or no technical restrictions to control the enormous volatility. Generally, this is a sign that the market is trying to trace out at least an intermediate-term "Hoover-style" bottom. On Friday, the SPX was able to push through the top of its April range after being rejected five times since April 9. We do not consider this move over 5,550 to be an official breakout; it was only by 25 points and we need to see some follow-through this week. If we get additional buying, it could open the door for a run to the 5,640 zone, which is a key 61.8% retracement of the correction. That is also the location of the falling 50-day average. The next important chart resistance is up at 5,770-5,780 from the high in late March and the low in mid-January. We did see some very encouraging breadth stats last week, which would suggest the correction is possibly over and the indices are heading to all-time highs. We had a rare Zweig Breadth Thrust, which, since 1950, has occurred 16 times. The SPX was higher six months and 12 months later on each occasion, with average returns of 16% (six months) and 24% (12 months). (Mark Arbeter, CMT)