NEW YORK, Feb 19, 2026, 17:05 EST — After-hours
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) shares were little changed in after-hours trading on Thursday after the Washington Supreme Court ruled the company can be sued over deaths linked to sodium nitrite bought on its marketplace. The stock was up about 0.1% at $204.86; plaintiffs’ lawyer Carrie Goldberg said Amazon “shouldn’t be profiting from products they know people use to harm themselves,” while the company said it disagreed with the decision. (Reuters)
The ruling adds headline risk at a touchy moment for the stock, with investors still arguing over whether Amazon’s planned $200 billion capital spending push for 2026 will translate into returns fast enough. Some analysts said “the magnitude of the spend is materially greater than consensus expected,” and the debate has swept in other big cloud players including Microsoft and Alphabet. (Reuters)
Wall Street’s tone was cautious even before the court decision. The S&P 500 ended down 0.28% and the Nasdaq slipped 0.31% on Thursday, with investors weighing company forecasts and looking ahead to key inflation data. (Reuters)
The Washington court’s unanimous ruling rejected the idea that suicide automatically broke the chain of causation for negligence claims, sending the cases back into active litigation. It is the latest test of how far courts will go in holding online platforms responsible for products sold by outside vendors.
Separately, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak reiterated an Overweight rating and a $300 price target, saying he remained bullish “through this uncertainty” as Amazon ramps spending tied to AI and data-center capacity. He tracks what he calls capex yield — a measure of revenue lift versus the prior year’s capital outlay — and wrote: “As AWS opens more data centers, this ‘yield’ should improve.” Nowak also flagged “agentic commerce,” or AI tools that help shop on customers’ behalf, adding: “We look for AMZN horizontal agentic partnerships to emerge.” (Investing)
A regulatory filing showed Douglas J. Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, sold 4,784 shares on Feb. 17 under a Rule 10b5-1 plan — a pre-set trading program designed to avoid the appearance of trading on inside information. The filing also showed 11,959 restricted stock units vested two days earlier; Herrington held 512,109 shares directly after the transactions. (SEC)
Still, the downside case is not hard to sketch. If the litigation expands or turns into costly settlements, it could add pressure to a retail business already under the microscope; if the AI buildout fails to produce visible AWS acceleration, investors may stay wary of cash flow and the size of the bill.
What traders watch next is Friday’s U.S. Personal Income and Outlays report at 8:30 a.m. ET, which includes the PCE price index — the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge. A surprise reading can shift rate expectations quickly and swing appetite for high-spending megacap tech names, including Amazon. (Bea)
