Amazon.com Inc

Goldman Sachs Research says the forward price-to-earnings multiples of the largest S&P 500 companies have fallen sharply and are now converging toward the valuation of the other 495 stocks in the index, eroding a valuation premium mega-cap technology names have held for years. The firm points to two pressures behind the de-rating: a higher cost of capital and dramatically greater capital intensity. Microsoft, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Alphabet are committing enormous sums to artificial-intelligence infrastructure, including data centers, chips and power capacity, investments that may support future growth but consume cash today, while higher borrowing costs reduce the present value investors assign to future earnings and cash flows. Goldman's takeaway is that mega-cap tech is no longer priced as dramatically different from the rest of the market, leaving those companies to prove their growth deserves a premium, and investors should focus less on headline AI spending and more on the returns generated from it.

Two U.S. senators have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate shopping-assistant AI from Amazon.com and Walmart. In a letter to the FTC, Senators Tammy Baldwin and Rick Scott said Amazon's Alexa for Shopping and Walmart's Sparky may exclude American-made products from what they display or fail to detect false labeling, undermining U.S. manufacturing and misleading consumers. The senators cited research from a think tank led by former FTC Chair Lina Khan, which found that these AIs provide information about products made in China and other countries while suppressing information about American-made goods. The letter cites that research and notes that when Alexa was asked why there was no made-in-USA filter, it replied that doing so would "take away considerable sales from our largest seller base" and referred to overseas manufacturers. An Amazon spokesperson said the claim that the company deliberately withholds country-of-origin information is fundamentally wrong, and explained that Alexa for Shopping is a service that is continuously improving and that, to prioritize accuracy, it currently directs customers who ask about country of origin to the product detail page. The FTC declined to comment, and Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

An Amazon-branded cargo plane overran the runway while landing at Miami International Airport on September 6, 2026, killing at least five people and injuring five others, according to officials cited by CNBC and other outlets. The Boeing 767-300, operating as Prime Air Flight 7598 and flown by contract carrier 21 Air LLC, was arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, when it struck a van and an SUV outside the airport perimeter. The National Transportation Safety Board has launched a full investigation, and the crash briefly closed all four runways at one of the busiest airports in the US. Amazon's direct operational exposure appears limited because 21 Air operated the aircraft, though the Amazon Air branding still ties the company to the tragedy in the public's eyes. Amazon reported second-quarter revenue of $200.6 billion, up 20% year over year, with operating income up 43% to $27.5 billion, and expects to spend about $220 billion on capital expenditures in 2026 while trailing free cash flow turned negative at $7.6 billion.

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said the borrowing spree by AI hyperscalers is one reason long-term borrowing costs are rising, pointing to the competition for capital as the 10-year Treasury yield hit 5%. Warsh, speaking after the Fed raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point to 3.75-4%, said the so-called hyperscalers are out in the market raising funding and that the competition for capital is real. The five major hyperscalers issued $121 billion in U.S. corporate bonds in 2025, compared with an average of $28 billion a year between 2020 and 2024, according to BofA Securities, while Morgan Stanley estimates AI-related global debt reached nearly $236 billion by the end of May and forecasts it will approach $570 billion for the full year of 2026. Hyperscaler capital spending now runs close to 100% of operating cash flow, with some dipping negative, forcing the companies to turn to bond markets. Warsh also cited economic growth and geopolitics, namely the Iran war, as reasons for higher yields, but did not list the federal deficit, the explanation most bond investors give. He added that the Fed has set up an internal task force on AI, due to report by the end of the year.

Amazon raised its minimum wage to $20 an hour for qualifying full-time workers across its U.S. operations network, up from a previous $19 hourly floor. The increase lifts annual base pay for a 40-hour week to $41,600 from $39,520, an extra $2,080 a year, or roughly 5.3%. Amazon is also adding access to lower-cost banking services and says average compensation, including benefits, will exceed $32 an hour for eligible core-operations employees. The company did not disclose how many employees will receive the higher floor, leaving the total expense impossible to calculate with confidence. Amazon shares slipped approximately 0.5% to $247.20, about 0.55% below the $248.57 GF Value. Amazon reported $200.6 billion in second-quarter revenue and $27.5 billion in operating income.

Amazon has announced a sudden wage increase across its Canadian operations, under pressure from Unifor as the first union contract for workers at its YVR2 facility in Delta, British Columbia, nears completion. The wage bump coincides closely with the pending conclusion of mediation ordered by the B.C. Labour Relations Board, after Unifor sought a first contract through binding arbitration following months of stalling and challenges by Amazon. Unifor National President Lana Payne said it is about time Amazon recognizes that if it wants to operate in Canada, it will do so while respecting the rights of the workers it employs, and that the union will keep the pressure on so workers across Canada benefit from gains made through collective bargaining. Unifor Western Regional Director Gavin McGarrigle said pay raises are just one part of the equation, and that a union means a voice for workers not only on pay and benefits but in fixing health and safety and the speed ups Amazon is known for worldwide. Unifor is Canada's largest private-sector union, representing 320,000 workers.

Apollo Global Management said Wednesday that corporate debt from major cloud computing companies is becoming riskier as these firms increase spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok wrote in a note that the market is repricing hyperscaler credit fundamentals due to a debt-financed AI capital expenditure cycle with rising leverage, negative free cash flow and uncertain payback on depreciating assets. According to Apollo's research, the gap between hyperscaler credit default swaps and bank credit default swaps has widened to around 60 basis points from roughly zero since October 2025, suggesting hyperscaler credit risk is increasing independently rather than as a result of dealer hedging of new bond issuances. The warning comes after leaders of frontier large language models said over the weekend they want to slow the rate of advancements of their products due to safety concerns, which could have financial consequences for the cloud computing providers that run the LLMs. According to FactSet, Alphabet has a forward debt-to-equity ratio of 13% and forward free cash flow of negative $25.7 billion, Amazon has debt-to-equity of 23% and free cash flow of negative $30 billion, Meta Platforms has debt-to-equity of 34% and free cash flow of negative $25.7 billion, and Microsoft has debt-to-equity of 7.34% and positive free cash flow of $33.4 billion.

Amazon Web Services has told customers it cannot recover data and resources hosted solely in its Bahrain cloud region, following damage caused by Iranian drone strikes more than six months ago. The company said the impact extended across multiple availability zones, the separate groups of data centers within a single region, and that the scale of the damage exceeded the resiliency measures built into its regional infrastructure. In a separate update, AWS said it is also unable to restore data and resources hosted exclusively in one affected availability zone in the United Arab Emirates, and that replacement infrastructure is being deployed with additional updates expected in the coming months. AWS added that affected customers have largely shifted workloads to other regions and relied on backups where available, and said it remains committed to supporting customers in Bahrain over the long term with another update expected early next year. Amazon has not disclosed a financial impact from the incident.

Global hedge funds trimmed long positions across all of the Magnificent Seven in August as the financing of the AI infrastructure buildout increasingly shifted from equity toward debt-financed structures, according to the Data Insights Crowding Report August 2026 from Data Insights, a division of Hazeltree. Microsoft and Nvidia recorded only modest declines in long holders, while Amazon, Tesla, Meta, Alphabet and Apple saw more meaningful reductions, and short fund participation rose in Amazon, Alphabet and Apple, with a more moderate increase in Meta; Nvidia was the only Magnificent Seven name to see short participation fall. Semiconductor sentiment turned modestly less bullish, with the share of PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index constituents showing net long positioning slipping to 66.7% from 70.0% a month earlier, and MACOM Technology Solutions flipped from short-biased to long-biased, its long-to-short fund count ratio crossing above parity to 1.23x from 0.98x and net long exposure rising to 63.9% from 48.3%. Tim Smith, managing director at Data Insights, Hazeltree, said investor concern stemmed from whether future cash flows will cover the financing costs of the debt funding them, citing Nvidia's move to turn AI into an investable infrastructure asset class supported by financing platforms designed to mobilize more than $500 billion in third-party capital over time. Smith also flagged Alphabet's fall from grace, its long-to-short fund count slipping for the first time this year to 0.92 in August from 1.70 in July, with the shares falling from a high of $377.65 on August 4 to a low of $340.67 on August 20, a peak-to-trough decline of roughly 10%, before closing at $348.06, down 2% from the July 31 close. The report is based on anonymized data covering approximately 16,000 securities and more than 700 global funds across the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

The Federal Open Market Committee is widely expected to raise its benchmark rate to 3.75%-4.00% from 3.50%-3.75% at its September meeting, with a strong August jobs report and hotter-than-expected core CPI supporting the move. Amazon Web Services said it cannot restore access to resources and data hosted exclusively in its Bahrain region after Iranian drone strikes damaged infrastructure, affecting multiple Availability Zones and exceeding what its regional and multi-AZ services were designed to withstand, while one data-hosting zone in the United Arab Emirates also remains affected. SoftBank Group's five-year credit default swaps hovered near a three-year high at around 383.2 basis points, near their highest level since 2023, as investors assessed its funding plans for OpenAI, to which SoftBank has committed $64.6B. OpenAI has held early discussions with large investors about a new capital raise that could value the company at about $1.2T before an IPO, talks initiated by investors that could fund acquisitions and give the company flexibility to delay its IPO by one or two quarters. The Trump administration has appealed a federal court ruling by Judge Beryl Howell blocking the EPA from sending California's vehicle-emissions rules to Congress for potential repeal, a dispute involving stricter standards for cars, trucks, and lawn and garden equipment.

Amazon has announced a pay increase of 5.2% to 5.6% for its UK frontline staff, effective from September 27 and covering 70,000 employees including delivery drivers and those based in fulfilment centres. The company said full-time annual salaries will start at a minimum of £31,408, rising to £33,488 in some locations, while minimum starting pay for frontline operations employees will rise by up to 5.6% to £15.10 an hour, and by 5.2% to £16.10 an hour, depending on location. Amazon said starting pay has increased by 80p an hour in the past year and by 44% since 2022. John Boumphrey, Amazon UK country manager, said the frontline teams are the backbone of the business and that starting salaries now exceed £31,000 a year. Amazon added that it has committed to investing £40 billion in the UK from 2025 to 2027, the largest investment in the company's history outside the US, with more than £15 billion already delivered.

Amazon shares fell approximately 1.5% to $249.65 Tuesday after Amazon Web Services said it cannot restore its Bahrain cloud region or one damaged availability zone in the United Arab Emirates, damage the company said exceeded what the regional architecture was designed to withstand following the Iran war. The Bahrain disruption cut across multiple availability zones, challenging a core premise of AWS infrastructure redundancy; most customers shifted workloads elsewhere before a second zone went offline, but resources that were not moved remain unavailable. AWS expects another update on Bahrain in early 2027, while restoration progress for the affected UAE zone is expected within the coming months. The financial stakes are significant: AWS generated $42.23 billion of second-quarter revenue and $16.62 billion of operating income, implying a roughly 39.4% operating margin, profitability that depends partly on selling reliability at enormous scale. As Amazon builds more AI-heavy data-center capacity worldwide, exposed regions may require wider geographic separation, stronger physical protection and more aggressive cross-region backup systems, investments that could raise costs but also make AWS harder to displace.