NEW YORK, April 23, 2026, 12:12 EDT
Amazon stock surged to a new intraday record on Thursday, riding a strong April run as traders piled in ahead of next week’s earnings. Investors are eyeing the tech giant’s growing AI ambitions and its broadened partnership with Anthropic, expecting those moves to be reflected in the upcoming report. Shares reached $258.79 in New York trading.
Timing is key here. Amazon drops its first-quarter numbers April 29, lining up with Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta—all four set for results the same day. Investors are zeroing in on whether the surge in data-center outlays is fueling actual growth or just boosting expenses. According to Reuters, this group is on track to pour more than $600 billion into data centers this year.
Amazon shares added roughly 0.5% to trade at $256.62 in late morning action, building on Wednesday’s record close of $255.36, market data showed. That lift nudged the stock past its former 52-week peak of $258.60.
Monday’s Anthropic announcement jolted the sector. Amazon is putting $5 billion upfront into the AI startup, with total investment potentially reaching $25 billion. Anthropic, for its part, plans to pour more than $100 billion over the next decade into Amazon’s cloud platform and its proprietary Trainium chips. “Anthropic’s use of Trainium chips reflects the progress we’ve made together on custom silicon,” CEO Andy Jassy said. Reuters
The deal piled onto momentum already gathering around Amazon Web Services, or AWS, the tech giant’s cloud division. Earlier this month, Jassy put AWS’s AI services on pace for over $15 billion a year in revenue, with Amazon’s custom chip segment now topping $20 billion. “We’re not investing … on a hunch,” he told analysts. For Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist at Zacks Investment Management, the update confirmed AWS is translating AI demand into rapid, substantial revenue growth. Reuters
Analyst calls are shifting upward. This week, KeyBanc’s Justin Patterson bumped his price target to $325 from $285, pointing to AWS’s push toward 30% growth as capacity scales and new customers come in. Over at Barron’s, it’s noted that Truist’s Youssef Squali nudged his target to $285, up from $280, just before earnings. Current Wall Street consensus, according to MarketBeat, sits around $289.
Peers haven’t made things easy. Back in February, Amazon posted a 24% jump in AWS revenue for the December quarter, hitting $35.6 billion. Google Cloud surged 48%, while Microsoft Azure climbed 39%—both bigger leaps, though CEO Jassy pointed out those competitors started from far smaller numbers.
The surge has been sharp. According to MarketBeat, Amazon’s relative strength index—a momentum measure often watched by traders to spot when a stock might be stretched—hit its highest overbought mark in over three years as the stock soared almost 30% within just a few weeks.
Some analysts are sounding a note of caution. In a Wednesday piece on Seeking Alpha, writers pointed to Amazon’s roughly 32-times forward earnings multiple, warning that the stock offers scant cushion if free cash flow or margins slip again, especially with the company’s heavy spending on AI and the Leo satellite internet push.
The risk isn’t hypothetical. Back in February, Amazon stunned the market with a $200 billion capital spending forecast, knocking its stock down fast. “Amazon has to invest at these levels just to stay in the race,” D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria said at the time. Now, with Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta all slated to report on April 29, investors won’t have to wait long to see if revenue can start catching up with the spending. Reuters
