New York, February 7, 2026, 12:03 (ET) — The session ended with the market now closed.
Amazon.com (AMZN.O) slipped 5.6% to finish at $210.32 on Friday, lagging behind a surging Wall Street session that saw the Dow notch a new record above 50,000. The S&P 500 closed up 1.97%, while the Nasdaq climbed 2.18%.
Investors headed for the exits after Amazon projected capital expenditures would surge more than 50% to $200 billion in 2026—well above the $131 billion it expects in 2025. “The market just dislikes the substantial amount of money that keeps getting put into capex for these growth rates,” said Dave Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors. During the earnings call, Chief Executive Andy Jassy pushed back, saying AWS’s 24% growth looks a lot different on top of a $142 billion annualized run rate than it would from a smaller base. Reuters
The stakes have shifted, with investors now demanding returns from Big Tech’s AI spending sprees, not just swelling capex figures. This year alone, U.S. tech behemoths are on track to funnel over $630 billion into AI chips and data center infrastructure. Some on Wall Street are already likening the surge to the dot-com buildout two decades ago. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, flagged the retreat as a sign that traders are pivoting out of names “where positive surprises may be hard to achieve.” As for valuations: Amazon ended up trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.01, while Microsoft was at 21.62, and Alphabet’s sat at 28.36, according to Reuters.
Amazon’s quarterly results themselves weren’t the sticking point. The company’s SEC filing showed net sales up 14% to $213.4 billion in Q4. Operating income climbed to $25.0 billion, a figure that already factors in charges related to tax disputes, severance, and asset impairments.
Friday flipped the script: when Amazon and similar giants open their wallets, chipmakers rally. Nvidia surged 7.8%. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index tacked on 5.7%. Baird’s Ross Mayfield called the AI trade choppy, but noted there’s “real demand for AI products” and that “a necessity of a lot of spending to get there” remains. Reuters
The demand side has been running into headwinds. Just a day before, U.S. software and data-services stocks took another hit, spooked by the idea that AI tools might disrupt the space. The S&P 500 software and services index dropped 4.6%, wiping out about $1 trillion in market cap since Jan. 28. Some were calling it “software-mageddon,” according to Reuters. Reuters
Friday saw Amazon shares open at $202.70, dip to $200.31, then rebound sharply to $211.44. The stock settled at $210.32 by the close, with roughly 179 million shares changing hands, according to Yahoo Finance.
Investors eyeing Monday have a choice to make: is the $200 billion capex number just a temporary jolt, or should hyperscalers—those huge cloud operators behind sprawling data centers—brace for this to be the baseline? What’s clear: the focus is shifting fast. No longer just about who’s willing to spend, but who can actually squeeze profit out of all that investment.
The risks aren’t hard to spot: ramped-up spending could drive up both depreciation and operating costs ahead of any revenue gains, putting the squeeze on margins if demand falters or if new capacity hits the market too soon. Amazon’s margin for error on AWS growth—or its profit guidance—has gotten thinner, especially if investors feel they’ve already priced in AI gains that haven’t yet materialized in clear cash flows.
Investors now eye macro data that could shake up rate bets, and with them, the prices pinned to long-duration growth names. According to the Labor Department’s schedule, the postponed January jobs report lands Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 8:30 a.m. ET. January’s CPI follows two days later, Friday, Feb. 13, also at 8:30 a.m. ET.
