Why Amazon Stock Jumped 14% in July While the Market Was Flat
Key Points
In July, Amazon's major catalyst was the release of strong second-quarter results.
Robust demand for AI capabilities drove powerful quarterly results in the company's cloud services business, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Shares of e-commerce and cloud computing leader Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) jumped 14% in July, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
For context, the S&P 500 index was essentially flat -- it slipped about 0.1% -- and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index declined 3.2%.
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Through Thursday, Aug. 6, Amazon stock has gained 18% in 2026. The S&P 500 has returned 13.4% over this period.
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Strong Q2 results
On July 31, Amazon stock jumped 15.3%, following the release of its second-quarter results the prior afternoon.
Amazon reported quarterly revenue of $200.6 billion, up 20% year over year. This result easily beat Wall Street's consensus estimate of about $196.8 billion. Net income was $62.6 billion, or $5.75 per share, up 242% from $18.2 billion, or $1.68 per share, in the year-ago period.
The quarter's net income included a non-operating pre-tax "other income" of $53.4 billion, primarily from the company's investments in Anthropic, an artificial intelligence (AI) model maker best known for its Claude family of large-language models.
Segment revenue results:
- North America sales increased 16% to $116.2 billion.
- International sales increased 15% to $42.2 billion.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) -- Its cloud computing services business's sales increased 37% to $42.2 billion. This performance was driven by strong demand for AI capabilities.
Operating income results:
- North America's operating income was $9.1 billion, up 21% year over year.
- International's operating income was $1.7 billion, up 13%.
- AWS's operating income was $16.6 billion, up a whopping 63%.
"AWS is booming, growing 36.7% year-over-year in Q2 -- our fastest growth in 18 quarters -- and our AI and Chips businesses each eclipsed run rates of more than $25 billion," said CEO Andy Jassy in the earnings release. Jassy also called out the company's record delivery speeds in the first half of the year: "Over 40% more items delivered same-day or overnight, with Grocery and Everyday Essentials growing meaningfully faster than the rest of the business." Lastly, Advertising had another strong quarter with 26% year-over-year growth, he added.
Looking ahead
In the third quarter, Amazon expects revenue between $197.0 billion and $202.0 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 9% to 12%. Excluding the impact of Prime Day in both 2025 and 2026, the company said third-quarter growth would be nearly 400 basis points (0.4%) higher.
Operating income is expected to be between $22.5 billion and $26.5 billion, compared with $17.4 billion in the prior year's quarter. This would equate to growth of 29% to 52%.
In Q3 2025, operating income included two special charges: $2.5 billion related to a legal settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and $1.8 billion in estimated severance costs. Without these charges, operating income would have been $21.7 billion.
Beth McKenna has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.