After a 24% rise last year and a 27% increase in 2024 (as of Dec. 16), the S&P 500 is currently in record territory. While this has worked out extremely well for investors who have already put money to work, it could potentially be discouraging for those who have been on the sidelines.

But I don't think there's any reason to worry. Investors can still find compelling opportunities out there. In fact, here's one dominant tech enterprise that looks like the ultimate growth stock to buy with $1,000 right now.

Finding so many ways to grow

Companies that exhibit solid growth prospects usually benefit from having very favorable conditions in the end markets they operate in. But here's where tech juggernaut Amazon (AMZN -1.63%) stands out. This business has multiple secular trends working in its favor, making it a great growth stock.

Perhaps there's no segment that draws as much investor attention as Amazon Web Services (AWS), the industry-leading cloud computing platform. Last quarter, AWS saw revenue increase 19% year over year, continuing a streak of solid double-digit gains.

The developments taking place in artificial intelligence (AI), and the interest that many businesses have to leverage this technology, is also helping AWS. AWS has various products and services that offer AI-related tools. This makes the platform critical to its customer base, as they all will depend on AWS even more as time passes.

Every investor knows that Amazon has long dominated the e-commerce industry. It went from selling only books online to now offering up vehicles on the marketplace. Given that physical retail still represents 84% of commerce in the U.S., there is certainly a long runway in this sector for Amazon to further capture.

Investors might not be familiar with the fact that Amazon generated $14.3 billion from ad services in the third quarter. That figure was up 19% compared to the third quarter of 2023. According to Grand View Research, the global digital ad market is going to increase at a 15.5% compound annual rate through the rest of this decade, giving Amazon another growth driver.

Amazon has historically won over investors precisely because it was never short on finding ways to grow its sales. However, the company has recently been increasing its earnings at a remarkable pace, thanks to management's intense focus on keeping costs under control. Operating income jumped 55% to $17.4 billion last quarter.

Competitive strengths

Investors might be drawn to earlier-stage and faster-growing enterprises than Amazon. But these businesses usually lack any durable competitive strengths. Again, here's where Amazon is able to stand out. It has advantages that help it defend against the threat of disruption.

The first notable strength comes from the company's massive scale, which results in cost advantages. Amazon's sprawling logistics footprint, coupled with the huge number of products it sells, leads to lower costs when shipping goods. In other words, its revenue is so high that it can better leverage the sizable investments it makes in its supply chain.

Amazon also benefits from positive feedback loops throughout its entire sprawling business empire. "When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes," founder Jeff Bezos said in 2016.

He's talking about how the success of the company's streaming service, Prime Video, could lead to more Prime members. And once they realize the other benefits being a Prime member has, these consumers will start spending more money on Amazon.com. This, in turn, could result in greater ad revenue. It's a powerful virtuous cycle.

Amazon's valuation

In the past two decades, shares of Amazon have skyrocketed 11,260%, crushing the broader market indexes by incredible margins. And the current market cap sits at $2.4 trillion. I wouldn't blame you if you think that it might be too late to become a shareholder.

However, a quick look at the valuation indicates it's not too late. As of this writing, the stock can be purchased at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 45.4. Given that consensus analyst estimates call for earnings per share to increase at a 37.6% yearly clip between 2023 and 2026, Amazon still looks like a smart buying opportunity today that justifies paying that valuation.