Stock Market Today, Nov. 4: Amazon Jumps 6% From New Perspective on AWS Growth and AI Strategy Following Election Results
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), a global online retail, cloud computing, and digital advertising platform, closed at $266.03, up 6.12%. Today's move followed a reassessment of last week's earnings report after the midterm elections. Investors will continue to monitor AWS growth and Amazon's AI strategy next.
Trading volume reached 92.8 million shares, coming in about 142% above its three-month average of 38.3 million shares. Amazon IPO'd in 1997 and has grown 271,589% since going public.
How the markets moved today
The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) closed at 7,689, up 1.59%, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) finished at 25,737, up 1.44%. Among peers in global e-commerce, cloud computing, and digital advertising, Walmart closed at $129.17, up 3.45%, and Microsoft ended at $555.80, up 6.68%, as investors tracked cloud spending and holiday demand.
What this means for investors
The midterm election results surprised investors in some ways. One immediate reaction was a rising expectation for pushback and a slowdown in the data center build-out. While that hit smaller AI infrastructure names, it could be a boon for large hyperscalers like Amazon which already has massive cloud computing infrastructure in place.
Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius noted that the election results aren't likely to change the outlook for data centers at the federal level. He added, "However, Democratic wins at the state and local level are likely to lead to short-term data center moratoria, potentially affecting about 45% of planned U.S. data center capacity expansion."
Sales from Amazon Web Services (AWS) grew 39% to $46 billion in the third quarter. Restrictive data center growth going forward should only drive more business to AWS.
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Howard Smith has positions in Amazon and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Goldman Sachs Group, Microsoft, and Walmart. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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