Amazon Stock (AMZN) on December 4, 2025: Price Action, AI Momentum, Wall Street Targets and 2026 Outlook

Amazon’s share price is wobbling into December even as its cloud and AI story gets stronger. At midday on December 4, 2025, Amazon stock (NASDAQ: AMZN) is trading around $228 per share, down roughly 1–2% on the session from a previous close near $232.38. ^[1] Despite a powerful multi‑year run, AMZN is up only about 6.8% in 2025, significantly lagging both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq‑100, which have delivered double‑digit gains this year. ^[2]

At the same time, Amazon is pouring unprecedented amounts of capital into AI infrastructure, showcasing new products at AWS re:Invent 2025, renegotiating its logistics relationships with the U.S. Postal Service, and attracting a wave of fresh price‑target hikes on Wall Street. ^[3]

Here’s a detailed look at where Amazon stock stands today, what the latest news means, and how analysts see AMZN into 2026.

Amazon Stock Today: Price, Performance and the Recent Pullback

Intraday price (Dec 4, 2025): About $228–229, down roughly 1.5–1.8% on the day, with the last real‑time quote from MarketWatch showing $228.32, a decline of $4.06. ^[4]
Year‑to‑date performance: As of December 2, 2025, Amazon shares had gained just 6.8% in 2025, compared with 16.1% for the S&P 500 and 21.6% for the Nasdaq‑100. ^[5]
Longer‑term returns: Over the past three years, Amazon has delivered a 157%+ total shareholder return, according to Simply Wall St, highlighting how strong the longer‑term trend remains despite recent softness. ^[6]

Shares hit an all‑time high in early November and came close to a year‑to‑date high around $242.52 before sliding back toward the high‑$220s, leaving the stock several percentage points below its recent peak. ^[7] Recent analysis notes that AMZN has been “drifting lower” over the past month even as its multi‑year returns stay robust, prompting debate over whether the pullback reflects fatigue or opportunity. ^[8]

Earnings Backdrop: Q3 2025 Shows AI‑Driven Growth

Amazon’s third‑quarter 2025 results set the fundamental backdrop for today’s trading.

Revenue and profits

According to Amazon’s official Q3 release:

Net sales rose 13% year‑on‑year to $180.2 billion, compared with $158.9 billion in Q3 2024 (12% growth excluding FX). ^[9]
Operating income was $17.4 billion, flat versus the prior year, but this included two major charges:
- $2.5 billion related to an FTC legal settlement
- $1.8 billion in estimated severance costs tied to planned role eliminations ^[10]
  Excluding those charges, operating income would have been significantly higher, at about $21.7 billion. ^[11]
Net income jumped to $21.2 billion, or $1.95 per diluted share, from $15.3 billion, or $1.43 per share, a year earlier, boosted in part by a $9.5 billion pre‑tax gain from Amazon’s investment in Anthropic. ^[12]
Operating cash flow for the trailing twelve months grew 16% to $130.7 billion, though free cash flow fell sharply due to a massive increase in capital expenditures. ^[13]

AWS and AI as the profit engine

Amazon Web Services (AWS) remains the company’s profit powerhouse:

AWS revenue grew about 20% year‑on‑year in Q3, beating expectations of roughly 18% growth. ^[14]
AWS accounted for roughly 60% of Amazon’s total operating income, underscoring how central the cloud division has become to the AMZN investment case. ^[15]

Management has tied this growth directly to AI. In commentary cited by Reuters, Amazon’s CFO said the company expected full‑year 2025 capital expenditures to be around $125 billion, with even higher spending ahead, mostly focused on AI infrastructure and data centers. ^[16] Over the first three quarters alone, Amazon had already booked nearly $90 billion of capex. ^[17]

That spending pressure has weighed on free cash flow and valuation metrics based on cash, but it also lays the groundwork for AWS to capture a larger share of cloud‑based AI workloads.

AWS re:Invent 2025: Cementing Amazon as an AI Infrastructure Play

This week’s AWS re:Invent 2025 conference in Las Vegas has been another key catalyst for AMZN.

A string of announcements showcased Amazon’s ambition to be the infrastructure layer for AI, including:

New AI chips and servers: Launch of Trainium3 UltraServers, designed to accelerate AI training and improve performance per dollar for large language models and generative AI workloads. ^[18]
“AI factories” and agentic AI tools: New AWS AI Factories to turn existing facilities into managed AI infrastructure, plus Frontier Agents and expanded AgentCore capabilities to help customers build more sophisticated AI agents. ^[19]
Nova models and Nova Forge: Introduction of four new Frontier Nova models, along with Nova Forge (for enterprises to build their own models) and Nova Act to orchestrate browser‑based agents. ^[20]

One especially telling datapoint comes from a press release on AWS’s partnership with Zilliz, the company behind the Milvus vector database:

Zilliz has chosen AWS as its strategic cloud provider and now operates across nine AWS Regions, serving hundreds of enterprise customers. ^[21]
By using Amazon Graviton processors, Zilliz has cut its infrastructure costs by over 20%, while Amazon Q has reduced internal information‑retrieval time by more than 50%. ^[22]

This kind of customer validation reinforces Amazon’s narrative that AI services like Bedrock, SageMaker, Nova models and Q can drive both revenue and margin expansion in AWS over time.

Logistics Power Play: Amazon’s Growing Delivery Clout and USPS Talks

While AWS grabs the AI headlines, Amazon’s logistics strategy is also moving markets.

A new Reuters report details how Amazon has rapidly become a dominant force in the U.S. parcel market:

The U.S. courier and parcel market is expected to reach $239 billion by 2030. ^[23]
In 2024, Americans shipped 22.37 billion parcels. Amazon handled 6.3 billion of them, narrowly trailing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) at 6.9 billion. ^[24]
By 2028, Amazon is forecast to deliver 8.4 billion parcels, putting it on track to overtake USPS in volume. ^[25]
On a revenue basis, Amazon already commanded 15.3% market share in 2024, just behind USPS at 15.8%. ^[26]

At the same time, Amazon is rethinking one of its most important shipping partnerships:

Reporting from Seeking Alpha, citing the Washington Post, says Amazon is considering ending its massive USPS shipping contract by late 2026, shifting more parcels into its own delivery network. ^[27]
USPS has long relied on Amazon as one of its largest and most profitable package customers, so any breakup could hit the Postal Service’s finances hard. ^[28]
The negotiations appear strained: Amazon is said to favor a four‑year contract extension, while USPS is pivoting to a higher‑bidder, open‑access model, prompting Amazon to explore alternatives. ^[29]

For Amazon shareholders, the logistics story cuts both ways:

Short term, expanding its in‑house network and rural delivery footprint (Amazon pledged more than $4 billion to expand rural delivery by the end of next year) can pressure margins and free cash flow. ^[30]
Long term, deeper vertical integration could improve reliability, lower per‑package costs and strengthen the moat around Amazon’s retail and third‑party marketplace businesses.

Valuation Check: Is the Pullback a Buying Opportunity?

There is now a clear tension between hefty AI/logistics capex and analyst optimism.

Market‑based valuation metrics

A detailed look from Nasdaq/Motley Fool highlights how the spending spree is affecting Amazon’s metrics:

From December 31, 2024 to December 2, 2025, Amazon’s market cap rose from $2.32 trillion to $2.50 trillion.
The price‑to‑sales (P/S) ratio stayed roughly flat at 3.7, as revenue growth kept up with the share price.
The P/E ratio declined from 39.7 to 33.1, reflecting rising earnings.
The price‑to‑free‑cash‑flow (P/FCF) ratio spiked from 71.5 to 239.6, a direct consequence of surging capex and temporarily depressed free cash flow. ^[31]

Simply Wall St notes that while Amazon’s one‑year share price return has been modest versus its three‑year performance, revenue and profits are still growing at double‑digit rates, and the current share price sits below the average analyst target. ^[32]

Street‑level price targets and ratings

Across Wall Street, the consensus remains notably bullish, even if some commentators frame Amazon as a “hold” or a candidate for dollar‑cost averaging.

Key data points:

StockAnalysis aggregates the views of 46 analysts, showing:
- Consensus rating: “Strong Buy”
- Average 12‑month price target: $283.85
- Implied upside: ~24% from current levels
- Target range: $195 (low) to $340 (high) ^[33]
A December 1 analysis from 24/7 Wall St reports a median price target of about $295, with potential upside of roughly 26–27%, and notes that 43 of 44 analysts rate AMZN a “Buy” and only one a “Hold.” ^[34]
GuruFocus compiles estimates from 70 analysts, finding:
- Average target price: $290.22
- High estimate: $360
- Low estimate: $227.10
- Implied upside of around 27.5% from a recent price near $227.59 ^[35]

The same GuruFocus piece summarizes a flurry of very recent price‑target actions:

Rosenblatt: Maintains “Buy”, $305 target (Dec 4).
Bank of America Securities: Raises target from $272 to $303, reiterating “Buy” (Dec 3). ^[36]
Citizens: “Market Outperform,” $300 target. ^[37]
Wedbush: “Outperform,” $340 target. ^[38]
Wells Fargo: “Overweight,” target nudged from $292 to $295. ^[39]
Oppenheimer: Raises target from $290 to $305, maintaining “Outperform.” ^[40]

MarketBeat characterizes Amazon as a “sleeping giant,” noting an average price target around $296, about 30% upside, with Oppenheimer’s $305 call emphasizing “significant upside” from AWS over the coming years. ^[41]

Put simply, most analysts see mid‑20s to low‑30s percent upside over the next 12 months, anchored in the belief that AWS and AI will drive faster earnings growth than the broader market.

What 2026 Could Look Like for Amazon Stock

While near‑term price targets are clustered in a relatively narrow band, views diverge more when the horizon shifts to 2026 and beyond.

A recent Nasdaq‑hosted article by Motley Fool frames Amazon as a “hold” for most investors and highlights several themes: ^[42]

Capex supercycle: Amazon plans to spend more than $125 billion on capital expenses in 2026, on top of an expected ~$125 billion in 2025, largely for AI and cloud infrastructure. ^[43]
AI arms race: AWS clients are willing to pay a premium for additional AI compute, but the payoff for Amazon’s earnings may take years as AI‑related revenues catch up with upfront investments. ^[44]
Volatility ahead: With macro conditions, interest rates and AI sentiment all in flux, the article argues that volatility is likely to remain high and suggests dollar‑cost averaging as a prudent way to handle swings in AMZN. ^[45]

Meanwhile, a 24/7 Wall St forecast underscores that Amazon’s stock is still seen as a “Strong Buy” overall, yet it also flags risks from consumer‑discretionary headwinds and economic uncertainty, including tariff‑related pressures that have weighed on the broader sector in recent months. ^[46]

In other words:

Bullish case:
- AWS revenue growth re‑accelerates toward (or beyond) the 20–25% range, as suggested by recent analyst commentary and expectations. ^[47]
- AI services (Nova models, Bedrock, SageMaker, Q) become high‑margin growth engines. ^[48]
- Logistics vertical integration boosts operating leverage in retail and third‑party marketplace segments. ^[49]
Bearish case:
- Capex stays elevated longer than expected, keeping free cash flow under pressure. ^[50]
- Consumer spending weakens or a recession hits discretionary names, including Amazon’s core retail business. ^[51]
- Regulatory risks (FTC actions, AI scrutiny, logistics dominance) translate into fines, required changes to business practices, or higher ongoing compliance costs. ^[52]

Key Risks Investors Are Watching

Even with a broadly bullish analyst backdrop, Amazon faces several important risks:

AI and cloud competition
Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud continue to post strong AI‑driven growth, and both are also in the midst of their own capex surges. If AWS fails to maintain its performance lead or pricing power, the high capex could weigh on returns for longer than the market expects. ^[53]
Spending vs. returns timing
The spike in P/FCF shows how sensitive Amazon’s valuation is to free cash flow. If AI revenues don’t scale as quickly as anticipated, investors may have to digest several more years of elevated capex and lower free cash flow, keeping a lid on the multiple. ^[54]
Macro and consumer demand
As a key part of the consumer‑discretionary sector, Amazon is exposed to weakening consumer spending, higher interest rates, and trade policy shocks. 24/7 Wall St notes that the sector has recently been one of the weaker performers within the S&P 500. ^[55]
Regulatory and antitrust scrutiny
The recent FTC settlement and associated charges in Q3 highlight that regulatory challenges remain very real. ^[56] Amazon’s growing share of the parcel market and potential withdrawal from USPS contracts may invite further scrutiny around competition and public‑service impacts. ^[57]

Bottom Line: How the Market Is Framing Amazon Stock Right Now

As of December 4, 2025, Amazon stock sits at a crossroads:

The share price has gone sideways for much of 2025 and currently trades below recent highs, even as earnings grow and AWS accelerates. ^[58]
Wall Street’s consensus remains solidly positive, with average 12‑month price targets in the high‑$280s to mid‑$290s and some of the most bullish calls reaching $340–$360 per share. ^[59]
The core debate is no longer about whether Amazon is a successful business, but whether today’s price appropriately balances:
- Massive, AI‑driven growth potential in AWS
- Heavy capex and free‑cash‑flow pressure
- Logistics vertical integration and related regulatory risks

For now, many analysts argue that consolidation in the stock may be setting up a stronger risk‑reward profile into 2026, particularly if AI and cloud demand remain resilient and if Amazon can gradually harvest returns from its historic investment cycle. ^[60]

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice, investment recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any securities. Always do your own research or consult a licensed financial professional before making investment decisions.