Is it time to start stocking up on Amazon.com? Maybe.
Investors felt rattled last week after a crazy stock market, the financial crisis and disappointing results from eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ). But investors will get a better sense of how the online shopping season will shape up on Wednesday, when online retailer Amazon reports its earnings for the quarter ending in September.
IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) and Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ), by contrast, were able to sooth investors with less. IBM reported year-over-year earning growth of just 20% (see "IBM Powered By Strong Earnings"). Likewise, Intel reported an earnings jump of just 12%. In both cases, the market perked up.
The real question is how Amazon--and shopping overall--will fare as the downturn deepens in the coming months. Analysts are expecting Amazon will report earnings of $235.1 million, or 56 cents per share, on sales of $7.1 billion for the quarter ending in December.
Fears of an economic slowdown have already sent Amazon shares down more than 40% this year to $52.97 from $92.64.
However, the sell-off may be overdone.
Amazon has grown faster than e-commerce as a whole lately. In the first half of the year, U.S. e-commerce spending grew 12% year-over-year, according to BernsteinResearch.
Amazon, by contrast, saw its North American revenues surge 33.2%. Even with U.S. e-commerce growth slowing to 6.4%, Amazon stands to disproportionately benefit.
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