Amazon shares soared more than 11% at the start of trading on Wall Street on Friday, driving a rebound in US markets after the online retail and cloud giant reported surging demand for its AWS division.
The company’s profits jumped nearly 40% year-on-year to $21.2 billion (£16.2 billion), easily beating expectations and signalling strong momentum across its e-commerce and cloud computing operations.
The rally helped lift the broader market, reversing some of the previous day’s weakness sparked by disappointing results from Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company.
By mid-morning in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 64.86 points (0.1%) to 47,586.98, the S&P 500 gained 50.31 points (0.7%) to 6,872.65, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 356.45 points (1.5%) to 23,932.36.
The sharp rise in Amazon shares provided a major boost to the tech-heavy Nasdaq, reinforcing optimism that strong corporate earnings can offset concerns over monetary policy and slowing global growth.
