NEW YORK, March 2, 2026, 16:49 ET — Trades continue after the bell.
Amazon.com dropped 0.8% by the close on Monday, a move echoed after hours with shares trading around $208.39. Power and connectivity failures hit Amazon Web Services in both UAE and Bahrain after a strike by unidentified objects set off a fire at an AWS data center in the United Arab Emirates. Authorities cut power to two clusters, and AWS is saying it’ll take at least a day to get everything fully back online. The outage took down about a dozen cloud services and caused ripple effects for local finance. Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank reported its platforms and mobile app went dark amid the broader IT breakdown. Microsoft, Google and Oracle also have data centers in the UAE. 1
AWS drives Amazon’s profits—and investors often eye the cloud division as a kind of pressure gauge for the stock. Back in early February, Amazon rattled Wall Street by projecting around $200 billion in capital spending for 2026 as it scales up its AI infrastructure. “The market just dislikes the substantial amount of money that keeps getting put into capex for these growth rates,” said Dave Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors. 2
Outages linked to a conflict zone, alongside fresh investment pledges, have pushed attention back onto execution rather than just growth. For Amazon stock, the key questions: Will adding servers actually create lasting demand? And can the network hold steady when it counts?
Amazon plans to pour another 18 billion euros ($21 billion) into Spain, aiming to ramp up its data center footprint and strengthen its AI efforts. That brings the company’s total investment for the country up to 33.7 billion euros. The move comes after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met with David Zapolsky, Amazon’s chief global affairs and legal officer, in Barcelona. “With this investment, we make Spain the AI epicentre of our operations in Europe,” Zapolsky said. 3
Amazon plans to drop referral fees for Indian sellers on products under 1,000 rupees ($10.98), widening a zero-fee initiative it began last year. Over 125 million items will fall under the new policy. The company is also trimming certain shipping fees. “This move is designed to make selling on Amazon more lucrative and simpler,” said Amit Nanda, director of Selling Partner Services for Amazon India, as the company keeps up the pressure on Flipkart and Reliance. 4
AWS reported Sunday that its UAE data center lost power for a short period when objects struck the site, sparking a fire. The company said the incident impacted one of its availability zones—these zones are clusters of linked physical data centers within an AWS region. When pressed on any connection to recent strikes, AWS declined to confirm or deny. 5
Amazon keeps pinching pennies in retail, funneling cash into logistics and cloud. Occasionally, those priorities collide. Cutting fees in India could push up volumes, yet it’s a sign of just how hard Amazon is willing to fight to protect its turf.
There’s a clear risk on the other side. If the outage drags on, AWS faces service credits and its reputation takes a hit. Should the conflict expand, data-center names stay in the spotlight. And every fresh commitment to new facilities makes it trickier for Amazon to argue that returns will land in investors’ hands any time soon.
As the U.S. session approaches on Tuesday, traders are zeroed in on whether AWS services in the Gulf recover and if that disruption ends up pushing more customers elsewhere. The bigger data drop lands Friday, when the U.S. February jobs report hits on March 6—a release that has markets edgy over shifting winners and losers as AI keeps shaking up corporate budgets. “There continues to be this back and forth about who might be the victim,” said Kristina Hooper, chief market strategist at Man Group. 6
