NEW YORK, Feb 26, 2026, 5:02 PM ET — After-hours
Amazon.com, Inc. finished Thursday’s session at $207.92, down 1.3%. After the bell, the stock barely budged. In regular hours, shares moved in a $205.35 to $211.05 range. 1
The decline comes as investors continue to weigh just how much Big Tech’s AI ambitions will cost. Amazon, in particular, faces the question head-on with AWS: demand remains solid, yet the mounting expenses are impossible to brush aside.
Legal pressure is back in focus. It won’t hit next quarter’s earnings, but it could alter Amazon’s marketplace rules — and the take rate — in unpredictable ways.
Stocks in the U.S. slipped, with investors trimming tech positions after Nvidia’s earnings didn’t trigger the next rally. “It feels like an Nvidia hangover that’s specific to the AI space,” said Michael Green, chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management. 2
Amazon might put as much as $50 billion into OpenAI, but only if the AI firm either goes public or reaches artificial general intelligence, The Information reported. That’s a hypothetical benchmark for AI systems matching broad human capabilities. According to the story, Amazon would start with $15 billion, while the other $35 billion would depend on reaching those milestones. Reuters noted it couldn’t confirm the details independently. 3
California Attorney General Rob Bonta wants a state judge to grant a preliminary injunction to halt what he described as Amazon’s move to prevent lower prices on other sites. “Amazon’s goal is to insulate itself from price competition,” Bonta said. Amazon pushed back, dismissing the filing as “a transparent attempt to distract from the weakness of its case.” 4
In the UK, Amazon hit a setback when a court denied its bid to appeal a ruling that greenlit two massive opt-out lawsuits—potentially totaling 4 billion pounds—from both consumers and retailers. At the core: the “Buy Box,” Amazon’s primary purchase button, which plaintiffs claim channels most sales. 5
Amazon’s David Zapolsky, according to a securities filing, moved to sell 10,649 shares—roughly $2.19 million—under a Rule 144 notice dated Feb. 24. The disclosure cites a Rule 10b5-1 plan, which sets out trading instructions ahead of time to curb flexibility over when shares can be sold. 6
Main worry for bulls? Still comes down to cash and margins. Amazon, earlier this month, put out a 2026 capital spending target of around $200 billion—up sharply from the $131 billion planned for 2025. CEO Andy Jassy used the investor call to back AWS’s growth position against competitors. “The market just dislikes the substantial amount of money that keeps getting put into capex for these growth rates,” said Dave Wagner at Aptus Capital Advisors. 7
All eyes now shift to Friday, when January’s U.S. producer price index lands at 8:30 a.m. ET. The number could feed into rate expectations, throwing fresh scrutiny on megacap tech valuations. 8
