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Amazon vs. Alphabet: Here’s who has the edge in the race to $1,000 per share

Amazon and Alphabet: The race to $1000 a share
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Amazon and Alphabet: The race to $1000 a share

As Amazon and Google parent Alphabet propel the Nasdaq 100 to new all-time highs this week— and notch record levels of their own — investors may wonder which $900+ technology stock will break the $1,000 milestone first.

"Choosing between Amazon and Google is kind of like picking your favorite child. It's just something we wouldn't recommend doing," Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at MKM Partners, said Monday on CNBC's "Power Lunch."

Amazon and Alphabet both finished Monday trading at record highs, closing at $954.40 and $932.82, respectively.

Krinsky says both will touch $1,000 in due time — but if forced to choose between his proverbial children, the technical analyst would pick Amazon. Amazon recently made a new all-time high relative to the S&P 500, whereas Alphabet is still hovering just below the relative high it made in early 2016.

"On a relative basis, Amazon has a little bit more momentum," he said.

In an email to CNBC, Krinsky noted shares of Amazon and Alphabet have soared triple-digit percentages in the last few years — Amazon is up 300 percent in the last five years, and Alphabet has gained 200 percent in the same time — so he believes "picking the next one to get the last 5-6% is not exactly going out on a limb."

In the options market, current pricing implies a roughly 27 percent chance that Amazon will touch $1,000 in the next month; meanwhile, Alphabet options imply a 12 percent chance that Alphabet will hit quadruple digits in that time. The higher odds for Amazon make sense insofar as the stock is not only closer to $1,000, but also tends to be more volatile (and thus is seen as more likely to experience large moves to the upside or the downside).

Interestingly, the most bullish price target for both of the stocks, per FactSet data, is $1,250 — Susquehanna and Wedbush are tied for highest target on Amazon, and Deutsche Bank holds the highest rating for Alphabet. All but 10 analysts of the 45 who cover Amazon, per data available on FactSet, give Amazon a price target of $1,000 or more. Meanwhile, all but nine analysts give Alphabet a target of $1,000 or more.

When considering the stocks' respective valuations, Alphabet appears more attractive than Amazon at this juncture, said Washington Crossing Advisors portfolio manager Chad Morganlander.

"We view this company as growth at the right pace," Morganlander wrote in an email Monday to CNBC.

"We do like Amazon's business model," but would choose Alphabet as a better value pick, based upon its expected earnings per share for 2018 and forecasted revenue for that year — which are $40.13 and $103 billion, per FactSet.

Amazon, meanwhile, is expected to earn $11.81 per share on $201 billion of revenue in 2018.

—CNBC's Alex Rosenberg contributed reporting.