Amazon surges, eyes Wall Street record gain in value By Reuters

By Noel Randewich

(Reuters) – A day after Facebook (NASDAQ 🙂 owner Meta Platforms suffered the biggest loss of stock market value in history for a US company, Amazon (NASDAQ 🙂 was on track to log the greatest ever one-day increase in value.

Shares of the online retail and cloud computing giant surged almost 15% on Friday following its quarterly blowout report, expanding its market capitalization by more than $ 200 billion as of mid-day.

If Amazon’s stock were to close at that level, it would beat Apple (NASDAQ 🙂 ‘s record $ 181 billion one-day gain in stock market value on Jan. 28 following the iPhone maker’s own blockbuster quarterly report, according to Refinitiv data.

Amazon is now valued at about $ 1.6 trillion. With Meta Platforms’ stock dipping an additional 2% on Friday, its stock market value stood at about $ 653 billion.

Amazon’s shares jumped after company reported better-than-expected profits late on Thursday and said it was hiking the price of its annual US Prime subscriptions by 17%.

The surge in the value of Amazon comes a day after Meta Platforms’ stock market value plunged more than $ 200 billion in the biggest single-day loss for a US company after the social media giant issued a dismal forecast.

“After fighting the post-lockdown blues in 2021, we believe Amazon’s fortunes have the potential to improve as 2022 unfolds,” Monness Crespi Hardt analyst Brian White wrote in a research note. “Amazon is uniquely positioned to exit this crisis as one of the biggest beneficiaries of accelerated digital transformation.”

Apple, Microsoft (NASDAQ 🙂 and Google owner Alphabet (NASDAQ 🙂 remain Wall Street’s most valuable companies, with market capitalizations of $ 2.8 trillion, $ 2.3 trillion and $ 1.9 trillion, respectively, according to Refinitiv.