Amazon Sets Single-Day Market Cap Gain Record

Amazon on Friday (Feb. 4) set the one-day record for biggest jump in market value for a U.S. company, one day after Meta Platforms, Inc. — the parent company of Facebook — set the ignominious distinction of the biggest single-day market capitalization loss, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Amazon’s market cap now sits at about $1.63 trillion, good for fourth in the U.S. behind Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet, while Meta sits in seventh, the report says. Amazon’s surge can be traced to its doubling of profits during the holiday shopping season and the jump in its Prime membership price to $139 a year, up from $119. The company also controlled its labor costs and grew its cloud and ad sectors.

In recent days, investors have shown they have more faith in the tech companies whose services are seen as staples than in those whose offerings are more elective, said John Lynch, chief investment officer at Comerica Wealth Management, which manages $175 billion.

“The big thing was more of a sigh of relief with Amazon because there’s been so many worries in regards to that stock in terms of the comparisons after the pandemic being much more difficult,” said Daniel Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Co., in the WSJ report.

Related: Amazon’s 4Q Shows Push to Control Labor Costs and Build Automated Last Mile

Amazon’s 2021 fourth-quarter results, announced Thursday (Feb. 3), showed Wall Street the company has resilience against economic uncertainty, especially as consumers continue to spend and third-party sellers continue to sell and the cloud business continues to steam ahead.

The company is also increasingly using its scale and automation capabilities to deal with labor costs and other supply chain-related snags that might slow down a smaller enterprise, including through its ongoing buildout of logistics and fulfillment.

Amazon’s investment in electric vehicle maker Rivian paid off big time, to the tune of more than $11 billion in net income out of Amazon’s quarterly total of $14.3 billion. Amazon is expected to roll out a fleet of 100,000 Rivian electric delivery vehicles some time in the future after ordering that many from its newest partner.