The numbers coming out of Amazon’s second quarter look almost too good to be true. Net income tripled to $62.6 billion. Revenue climbed 20 percent to $200.6 billion. The stock crossed a $3 trillion market capitalization for the first time in company history. And yet, the most telling detail might be the one buried in the footnotes: roughly $53 billion of that profit surge came from a single line item — the revaluation of Amazon’s stake in Anthropic.
That’s not operational earnings. That’s a mark-to-market gain on paper, driven by convertible notes worth $97.9 billion and non-voting preferred shares valued at $92.5 billion, together forming a $190.4 billion package. The cloud business, meanwhile, continues to hum: AWS grew 36.8 percent to $42.2 billion, its fastest clip in 18 quarters and well ahead of the 31 percent analysts had penciled in. Operating income expanded from $19.2 billion to $27.5 billion. The core engine is firing on all cylinders.
But the guidance for the third quarter tells a more cautious story. Amazon expects revenue between $197 billion and $202 billion, short of the $204.1 billion consensus from LSEG-polled analysts. Management points to the shifted Prime Day — held in June this year rather than later — which they say masks roughly 400 basis points of underlying growth. That explanation has merit, but it also signals something else: a company that now has to actively justify why its own forecast trails Wall Street’s expectations.
The Anthropic calculus cuts both ways
The relationship with Anthropic is not a one-way street. The AI startup is contractually bound to use AWS as its primary cloud provider and to spend billions on Amazon’s proprietary Trainium chips — a structure that converts capital intensity back into revenue. If Anthropic proceeds with its planned October IPO, following a May funding round that valued it at $965 billion and a targeted listing value of at least $1 trillion, Amazon’s 21 percent stake could be worth more than $210 billion, according to media reports. For shareholders, that would be the moment the bet finally pays off in real, liquid terms — or, conversely, the moment the market reprices AI valuations and the paper gains evaporate.
The capital demands are escalating regardless. Rising memory prices have forced Amazon to boost its investment budget for the year from $200 billion to $220 billion. That’s a massive commitment to infrastructure at a time when the stock is trading near record levels.
Bezos sells into strength
Founder Jeff Bezos has been taking advantage of that strength. On Tuesday, he filed a Form 144 signaling his intent to sell 15 million shares worth roughly $4.07 billion, executed through an automated 10b5-1 trading plan established on November 14, 2025. By Thursday, the first tranche had moved: approximately 1.2 million shares changing hands for about $350 million — Bezos’s first disposal of the year, according to regulatory filings.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Amazon?
The sales come after a remarkable run. The stock jumped 15 percent in a single session following the earnings release, pushing Amazon’s market value past $3 trillion for the first time. Earnings per share came in at $5.75 against forecasts of $1.82, while revenue beat the $196.47 billion consensus. The shares closed Thursday at €236.30, up 10.81 percent over 30 days and about 5.10 percent below the 52-week high of €249.00 reached in early August.
Analysts split, but mostly bullish
Wall Street has largely responded with raised targets. Benchmark lifted its price objective to $400 on Wednesday, citing accelerating AWS growth and AI-driven margin expansion. JPMorgan’s Doug Anmuth reaffirmed his “Overweight” rating with a $365 target, and Mizuho Securities bumped its target from $320 to $330 on Tuesday. Not everyone followed suit: CMB International Securities trimmed its target from $305 to $301 on Monday, though it maintained a buy recommendation.
Legal and regulatory clouds gather
The bullish narrative faces headwinds beyond the valuation questions. New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport has filed what her office describes as the first monopsony lawsuit by a US state against Amazon, alleging abuse of market power over third-party delivery providers. Amazon has dismissed the claims as “not fact-based.” Warner Bros. Discovery has separately sued Amazon over the alleged poaching of a marketing manager under an active contract. Both cases remain unresolved, but they underscore how Amazon’s scale is increasingly becoming the subject of legal scrutiny.
On the trade front, US regulators are reportedly preparing an import ban on optical transceivers from China — components critical to AWS’s AI infrastructure, with Chinese suppliers accounting for nearly two-thirds of global production. Such a ban could create hardware bottlenecks precisely when Amazon needs to expand its data center capacity most urgently.
A stock that keeps climbing anyway
The market, for now, is looking past these concerns. The stock has risen 10.67 percent over the past 30 days, and the combination of strong operational results and raised price targets appears to be absorbing the Bezos selling. The company’s expansion continues unabated: its Zoox robotaxi unit received approval to deploy up to 2,500 vehicles commercially per year and has launched paid rides in Las Vegas, with Miami and Austin next in line.
Amazon’s third-quarter results are due in October, and they will offer the first real test of whether the Prime Day shift explanation holds up. For now, the market is betting on AWS’s momentum and the potential payoff from Anthropic. But with a founder selling shares, regulators circling, and capital expenditures climbing toward $220 billion, the margin for error is getting thinner. The stock’s next move may depend less on what Amazon does right — and more on what could go wrong.
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