New York, January 5, 2026, 09:32 EST — Regular session
- Amazon shares fell about 2% in early trading, lagging a steady broader market.
- Investors weighed renewed debate over whether AI infrastructure spending could revive inflation and keep rates higher.
- Traders are looking ahead to Amazon’s next quarterly results, expected in early February.
Amazon.com shares slid in early trading on Monday, falling 1.9% to $226.50.
The drop comes as investors start 2026 re-testing a market assumption: that aggressive spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure won’t rekindle inflation. “The costs are going up not down in our forecast, because there’s inflation in chip costs and inflation in power costs,” Morgan Stanley strategist Andrew Sheets said in a Reuters report on the risk. 1
That matters for Amazon because Amazon Web Services is a major buyer of data-center hardware and power, and the stock has tended to track shifts in interest-rate expectations even when the company’s day-to-day operations look unchanged.
In the broader tape, the S&P 500 edged higher while the Nasdaq 100 was slightly lower. Microsoft fell about 2.2% and Meta dropped about 1.4%, while Alphabet gained about 0.7%.
A recent bull case has centered on Amazon’s shopping tools. Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney reiterated a Buy rating and highlighted Amazon’s “Rufus” shopping assistant, TipRanks reported, pointing to “agentic commerce” — AI systems that can take actions for users, such as selecting items and completing purchases. 2
Skeptics have pushed back on valuation. Zacks Research lowered Amazon to “hold” from “strong-buy” in a Jan. 3 research note, MarketBeat reported. 3
The stock is still trading in the shadow of October’s update, when Amazon flagged faster cloud growth and forecast fourth-quarter net sales of $206 billion to $213 billion. CFO Brian Olsavsky said then the company expected full-year capital spending of about $125 billion, with more spending likely the following year. 4
The next clear catalyst is earnings. Wall Street Horizon’s event calendar lists Amazon’s next report for Feb. 5 after the close, though it said the date is unconfirmed. Investors will focus on AWS growth, advertising trends and any reset to 2026 spending plans. 5
But the setup is sensitive to rates. If inflation worries harden into higher yields, investors may demand a lower price for future growth — and the biggest AI spenders can feel that shift first.
For now, traders are watching whether Amazon stabilizes as rate expectations drive megacap tech. Attention returns to the Feb. 5 report and what Amazon says about AWS momentum and the cost of its AI push.
