Amazon surges to add $135 billion in wild market value swing

Amazon.com Inc. is giving the market back what Meta Platforms Inc. just took away -- or at least a big chunk of it.

The e-commerce giant rose 9.6 per cent, adding more than $135 billion in market value, after climbing as much as 12 per cent at Friday’s open. That would be among the biggest single-day gains in U.S. stock market history, and would come just a day after Facebook parent Meta Platforms entered the other end of the record book with a $251 billion wipeout.


Amazon’s move came close to Apple Inc.’s U.S. record from last week -- the iPhone maker added about $179 billion in value on the day after its earnings report. The global record for a daily gain in market capitalization was set by PetroChina Co., which added $597 billion on one day in November 2007.

The surge in Amazon’s stock price came after sales in its cloud computing business beat Wall Street estimates and the company raised the price of Amazon Prime subscriptions, alleviating some concerns about the impact of cost increases on profitability. Those elements overshadowed forecasts for sales and operating profit in the current quarter that fell short of expectations.

Amazon on Thursday suffered its worst day since March 2020, as Meta’s earnings flop raised fears about results for other big technology companies. The 7.8 per cent decline in the regular session on Thursday wiped out more than $110 billion in market value for the Seattle-based company. Even with Friday’s rally, Amazon’s stock price is only back to where it was trading on Feb. 2.