Amazon Earnings Miss Deepens Wall Street's Big-Tech Rout

Amazon reported third-quarter earnings per share of $1.89 on a diluted basis, below the analyst consensus of $1.97, while revenue of $201.9 billion — up 12% year over year — narrowly missed the expected $202.25 billion. The company attributed the earnings shortfall largely to the absence of $9.5 billion in pre-tax gains that had boosted the same quarter in 2025 from its investment in AI startup Anthropic. Amazon stock had already shed 4% during the regular session before falling as much as 9% after hours, with the decline later improving to around 6%. For the fourth quarter, Amazon guided revenue of $240 billion to $247 billion, a range that could fall short of the Street's $244.5 billion expectation. The results landed amid a rough stretch for big technology stocks as investors grew anxious about returns on the sector's massive AI spending. Alphabet dropped 12% on Thursday — a record single-day loss that wiped out roughly $500 billion in market value — after missing revenue targets and reporting a slowdown in its core search business. Nvidia has shed 6% over the past month, and Meta is down 5% over the past week despite a solid earnings report. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy pointed to a bright spot, noting that AI investment drove 39% revenue growth at AWS in the quarter and a projected annual run rate of $184 billion, with growth expected to exceed 40% in both 2027 and 2028.