New York, June 21, 2026, 15:03 EDT
- Amazon ended Thursday at $244.39, a gain of 2.9%. Nasdaq was closed after that for Juneteenth and won’t open again until after the weekend.
- Amazon’s Prime Day is set for June 23-26, offering a new look at both consumer demand and Prime user activity.
- AWS’s Trainium chip is making headlines again as Amazon is reportedly in early talks to sell the chip to third-party data centers, according to .
Amazon.com stock ended Thursday at $244.39, gaining 2.9% before markets shut down for Juneteenth and the weekend. As Prime Day week kicks off, investors are eyeing two things: Amazon’s retail momentum and the company’s push to make AI costs pay off in its chip business.
Amazon’s Prime Day kicks off Tuesday, June 23, and continues through Friday, June 26. The sale, which covers electronics, fashion, beauty, home, groceries, and more, will feature millions of deals for Prime members, Amazon said. Prime Day is not an earnings event, but it gives a read on short-term Prime demand.
AWS is still the bigger piece for valuation. TechCrunch said on June 18 that Amazon’s AI chief Peter DeSantis told Bloomberg AWS is in early discussions to sell Trainium, the company’s AI accelerator chip, to outside firms for data center use. That would push Amazon nearer to Nvidia and AMD’s main hardware turf.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is setting expectations for the chip unit. TechCrunch cited Jassy’s shareholder letter, where he said the chip business on its own could see an annual run rate of around $50 billion by selling chips to both AWS and outside customers. Jassy also said it was “quite possible” Amazon would start selling chip racks to other parties. TechCrunch
Investors are sticking with capital expenditure, or capex—spending on things like data centers, servers, chips. Amazon’s first-quarter sales climbed 17% to $181.5 billion and AWS revenue jumped 28% to $37.6 billion. CEO Jassy said AWS is growing at its fastest rate in 15 quarters. Still, free cash flow dropped to $1.2 billion over the last 12 months. Most of that hit came from a rise in property and equipment spending tied to AI.
AWS picked up fresh proof this week, as WPP Enterprise Solutions signed a multi-year deal on June 18 to work with AWS on generative and agentic AI systems for brands. Agentic AI refers to software that acts on its own, with little input from people. Jeff Geheb, WPP Enterprise Solutions CEO, said companies have moved “past the pilot stage” and want AI that launches, scales, and generates measurable ROI. US Press Center
The cloud race is anything but easy. Alphabet’s Google Cloud still leads on percentage growth. Microsoft’s Azure and Nvidia’s chips hold the spotlight in AI infrastructure. Back in April, Reuters quoted Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com, calling AWS’s reacceleration “the standout story.” But Gil Luria at D.A. Davidson said Google Cloud’s much quicker growth could be “a slight disappointment” for AWS. Reuters
Amazon shares bounced last week, with the move looking less like retail enthusiasm and more like investors signaling they’ll back another stretch of Amazon’s AI spending as long as demand holds up. Prime Day could steer the retail story for a bit, but the deeper debate keeps circling cloud margins, chip supply, and how much AI gear Amazon can sell without cutting into AWS’s service revenue.
Amazon’s risk is still in focus. Reuters said last week, citing Bloomberg News, that Amazon could face an FTC suit or settlement over claims it misled advertisers about ad terms and pricing. The probe looks at “reserve pricing,” the minimum ad price bidders must accept. If there’s a penalty, weak Prime Day signal, or new AI capex fears, it could put Amazon’s June rally to the test. Reuters
Nasdaq trading will open at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time on Monday after the holiday break. Investors in Amazon are expected to be focused on how Prime Day demand shapes up, any updates around AWS chips, and general tech-stock sentiment. Nasdaq trading hours run 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern, according to .
