NEW YORK, December 29, 2025, 09:56 ET — Regular session
- Amazon shares eased in early trading as the company shelved commercial drone-delivery plans in Italy.
- The stock tracked a softer open for U.S. tech as investors trimmed gains into the final holiday-shortened week of 2025.
- Traders are watching this week’s Federal Reserve minutes and jobless-claims data for fresh rate clues.
Amazon.com shares were down about 0.3% at $231.91 in morning trading on Monday after the company said it would stop pursuing commercial drone deliveries in Italy.
The move matters because Amazon’s drone effort is aimed at speeding up the “last mile” — the final leg of delivery to a customer’s door — and cutting logistics costs over time. A retreat from Italy underscores how regulatory hurdles can slow that rollout. Reuters
It also comes as big technology stocks, which helped power the market’s 2025 advance, gave back ground at the start of the final trading week of the year. With many investors away, thinner liquidity can make moves look larger than the underlying news.
Amazon said in a statement to Reuters that it decided to halt its Italy drone program following a strategic review, despite what it described as constructive engagement with Italian aerospace regulators.
The company said the broader business regulatory framework in Italy did not support its longer-term objectives for the program. Italy’s civil aviation authority, ENAC, called the decision unexpected and pointed to “recent financial events involving the Group,” according to Reuters. Reuters
Amazon’s shares traded between $230.88 and $232.84 on Monday, after opening at $231.94. The stock’s move was broadly in line with the Nasdaq-heavy Invesco QQQ ETF, which was down about 0.3%, while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF slipped about 0.3%.
U.S. stocks opened lower as heavyweight tech names eased from last week’s gains that pushed the S&P 500 to new highs, according to a Reuters market report.
Among Amazon’s megacap peers, Microsoft and Alphabet were modestly lower in early trading, while Apple edged higher.
For the rest of the week, traders are watching the Fed’s meeting minutes — the record of policymakers’ discussion at their last rate decision — along with weekly jobless claims, in what Reuters described as an otherwise light U.S. economic calendar. U.S. markets are closed on Thursday for New Year’s Day.
“They’ll likely need tech to do much of the heavy lifting,” said Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley, in the Reuters report. MarketScreener
For Amazon specifically, investors are watching for any further updates on delivery automation and regulatory developments, alongside the usual focus on cloud growth at Amazon Web Services and advertising momentum as the company heads toward its next earnings cycle.
With the calendar turning and volumes expected to stay light, traders said stock moves in megacaps like Amazon can hinge as much on positioning and rate expectations as on company headlines.
