Let’s state the obvious: Donald Trump and Amazon CEO, and Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos do not see eye to eye. And that becomes a more concerning prospect for Bezos and Amazon now that Trump is president-elect.

In May, after learning of the large team of Washington Post reporters looking into his past, Trump told conservative TV commentator Sean Hannity that Bezos was using the paper to damage Trump’s chances because he feared what a President Trump would mean for Amazon.

"He thinks I'll go after him for antitrust," Trump said at the time. "Because he's got a huge antitrust problem because he's controlling so much, Amazon is controlling so much of what they are doing.

"He's using the Washington Post, which is peanuts, he's using that for political purposes to save Amazon in terms of taxes and in terms of antitrust."

Trump’s campaign later reiterated this narrative in a statement claiming that the Post was being used as political leverage so Amazon doesn’t “get sued for monopolistic tendencies that have led to the destruction of department stores and the retail industry.”

In response, Bezos has appeared undaunted in public. Bezos told an audience at Recode’s Code Conference in June that “a presidential candidate should embrace” the media coverage that the country’s democracy allows for rather than fight it. More recently, Bezos called out Trump for his threats of retribution against media organizations he feels have wronged him.

In the wake of Trump’s win, I asked an Amazon spokesman if Bezos planned to comment. I was told he doesn’t.

Investors seem to be unsure about what a Trump presidency means for the online retailer. Amazon’s stock was down 2.68 percent as of 11:25 am ET on Wednesday morning. Other tech stocks like Apple, Facebook and Alphabet were also down, but all less than 2 percent.

 

 

David Fuller's view

This is very interesting and there is also a brief tape on the site with Jeff Bezos talking about democratic rights and the importance of press scrutiny, which he says any politician should welcome. 

I agree, but what happens to the supposedly independent press if large, multinational Autonomies such as Amazon own national newspapers?  Furthermore, is it in the public’s interest if they do so?

Leading Autonomies in a number of industries are so successful that they are also highly disruptive.  This is free market capitalism, arguably at its best, but might it also be at its worst in terms of social issues?

Personally, I love Amazon but I have also been surprised that it has taken so long for an antitrust reaction to occur.        

These comments have probably contributed to some of the recent weakness that we have seen in the four shares mentioned above – Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet.  However, we can also point to the recent surge in US bank shares as a factor drawing demand away from some of the more highly priced Autonomies. 

Of the four companies above, I regard Apple as in a somewhat different situation, as it remains in a lengthy medium-term consolidation phase.  However, with Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet, it has clearly paid to buy these shares following returns to and slightly below their 200-day moving averages. 

This will not always work, and when it doesn’t, we will probably be experiencing a significant stock market correction. However, is that the case today when so many of Trump’s stimulative programmes have raised the floor under most US stocks?  I don’t think so, and it would probably require further talk of antitrust action by Trump or his financial team to drive these shares significantly lower at this time.