Amazon set for historic market cap gain after Meta’s epic loss

Amazon.com Inc. is likely to give the market back what Meta Platforms Inc. just took away – or at least a big chunk of it.

The e-commerce giant is poised to add about $155 billion in market value if the stock’s premarket gain of about 11% holds through Friday’s close. That would be among the top five single-day gains in U.S. stock market history, and would come just a day after Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. entered the other end of the record book with a $251 billion wipeout.

Amazon’s move could come close to Apple Inc.’s U.S. record from last week – the iPhone maker added about $179 billion in value on the day after its earnings report. The global record for a daily gain in market capitalization was set by PetroChina Co., which added $597 billion on one day in November 2007.

The surge in Amazon’s stock price came after sales in its cloud computing business beat Wall Street estimates and the company raised the price of Amazon Prime subscriptions, alleviating some concerns about the impact of cost increases on profitability. Those elements overshadowed forecasts for sales and operating profit in the current quarter that fell short of expectations.

Amazon on Thursday suffered its worst day since March 2020, as Meta’s earnings flop raised fears about results for other big technology companies. The 7.8% decline in the regular session wiped out $119 billion in market value for the Seattle-based company.

(Adds chart on biggest market cap gains globally, updates share prices.)

–With assistance from Shikhar Balwani, Jan-Patrick Barnert, Thyagaraju Adinarayan and Beth Mellor.