Two more buys in the Trading 212 SIPP today: more Amazon (AMZN) and more Nokia (NOK). About as different as two companies can be — one is a multi-trillion-dollar tech giant dominating e-commerce, cloud, and AI; the other is a century-plus-old Finnish telecom equipment maker turning itself around in the 5G era. Both seem good to me. Let me walk through why.
── Amazon (AMZN) — Four Businesses, One Stock ──
Amazon is one of those companies that some people still think of as just 'the online shopping company.' That was true 15 years ago. Today, Amazon is at least four massive businesses wrapped into one stock, and all four are working well. The e-commerce business — still the core, still growing — handles more online retail volume than anyone else on earth. The logistics network Amazon has built to support it — warehouses, delivery infrastructure, last-mile vans, cargo planes — is a competitive moat that no competitor can replicate without spending hundreds of billions. Every time I order something and it arrives the next day, I'm reminded why Amazon's retail business is not going anywhere.
Then there's AWS — Amazon Web Services — the cloud computing division that is the profit engine of the entire company. AWS generates more operating income than the entire rest of Amazon combined. It's the market leader in cloud infrastructure, powering a huge chunk of the internet, and it's growing as enterprises migrate workloads to the cloud and build new AI applications on AWS. The AI opportunity is particularly interesting: AWS offers access to multiple AI models through Bedrock, its own Trainium and Inferentia chips for AI workloads, and the infrastructure that companies need to deploy AI at scale. Cloud is still in the early innings of enterprise adoption, and AWS is the #1 player.
The advertising business is the third engine — and it's becoming a monster. Amazon's advertising revenue is now in the tens of billions annually, growing fast, and it's one of the highest-margin parts of the business. When you search for a product on Amazon, the first results are sponsored listings — brands paying to be seen by people who are already in buying mode. That's higher-intent than Google search and more directly measurable than social media advertising. Amazon knows what you buy, what you search for, and what you almost bought — the data that powers a uniquely effective advertising platform.
And then there's the fourth business: the everything-else portfolio — Prime Video, Alexa, Kuiper (satellite internet), Zoox (autonomous vehicles), Amazon Pharmacy, and whatever the next big bet turns out to be. Some of these will work, some won't. The point is that Amazon's culture of experimentation — funded by the cash machines of e-commerce, AWS, and advertising — means you're buying a portfolio of optionality alongside the core businesses. At today's valuation, I'm comfortable adding to a position in one of the world's best-run and most diversified technology companies.
── Nokia (NOK) — The Quiet Infrastructure Play ──
Nokia is a different beast entirely. Most people remember Nokia as the mobile phone company from the 1990s and 2000s — the indestructible brick phones, the Snake game, the ringtone that became a cultural phenomenon. That Nokia is long gone; the phone business was sold to Microsoft in 2014. Today's Nokia is a business-to-business telecom equipment company, competing with Ericsson and Huawei to build the infrastructure that mobile networks run on — radio access networks, IP routing, optical networking, fixed broadband, and submarine cable systems.
The investment case is straightforward. 5G networks are still being built out globally. The US and its allies have effectively locked Huawei out of Western telecom infrastructure, leaving Nokia and Ericsson as the two primary Western suppliers for 5G radio access networks. That's a favourable competitive dynamic that didn't exist five years ago and should support Nokia's market position for years. Beyond 5G, there's 6G on the horizon — early-stage, years away from deployment, but a reminder that network infrastructure is a recurring, multi-decade investment cycle, not a one-and-done build.
Nokia also has a more diversified business than most people realise. Beyond mobile networks, Nokia has a significant IP licensing business (Nokia Technologies) that monetises one of the largest patent portfolios in the telecom industry. Network infrastructure — IP routing, optical, fixed networks — serves broadband providers and enterprise customers. And the submarine networks division (yes, Nokia literally runs cables under the ocean) is one of only a handful of companies worldwide that can build and maintain undersea fibre-optic cables — a niche but essential piece of global internet infrastructure.
The financials have been improving. Margins are trending upward after years of restructuring. The dividend — while not the primary reason I own it — adds a modest income component. And the management team, led by Pekka Lundmark since 2020, has been executing a turnaround strategy that involves cutting lower-margin businesses, investing in higher-growth areas, and positioning Nokia as a focused, profitable network infrastructure company rather than a sprawling telecom conglomerate. The enterprise value relative to sales and earnings is reasonable — this is not an expensive stock relative to its sector.
Is Nokia going to 10x? Almost certainly not. It's a steady, unglamorous infrastructure company in an industry with long sales cycles, intense competition, and lumpy revenue from large carrier contracts. But at the current valuation, with a decent dividend, improving margins, and a structural tailwind from Western governments preferring Nokia and Ericsson over Chinese alternatives, it seems like a reasonable position to be adding to.
── Seems Good to Me ──
Two buys, two very different companies, one simple framework: these are businesses I believe will be worth more in 10 years than they are today, and I'm comfortable adding to both at current prices. Amazon — the four-engine juggernaut that keeps compounding across e-commerce, cloud, advertising, and whatever comes next. Nokia — the quiet infrastructure play rebuilding itself as a focused, profitable telecom equipment leader with a favourable geopolitical tailwind.
Not every buy needs a dramatic thesis or a 'this is the one' narrative. Sometimes you look at a company, look at the price, look at where the world is going, and think: seems good to me. This is one of those times.
As always, nothing on this site is financial advice. I'm a 66-year-old UK investor sharing what I do with my own money in the Trading 212 SIPP. Amazon and Nokia shares can go down as well as up. Do your own research, understand your own risk tolerance, and never invest money you can't afford to lose.