Tech

Amazon stock has lost nearly all of its gains from the pandemic

Key Points
  • Shares of Amazon have given up nearly all of their gains from the pandemic.
  • The stock skyrocketed in 2020 and 2021 as consumers shunned physical stores and flocked to online retailers for everything from face masks to office chairs.
  • Amazon and other technology stocks are getting crushed amid a broader market sell-off.

In this article

Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of Amazon.Com Inc., during the GeekWire Summit in Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021.
David Ryder | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares of Amazon have given up nearly all of their gains from the pandemic.

The stock closed at $2,177.18 on Tuesday, up just .06% from Monday. The last time Amazon traded around these prices was on Feb. 20, 2020, when the stock reached an intraday high of $2,176.79. That's before the name dipped in March 2020 along with the rest of the market during the initial pandemic uncertainty in the U.S. It's more than 40% off from the company's 52-week intraday high of $3,773.08, which it hit July 13, 2021.

Amazon's three-year stock chart.
CNBC

The company's stock skyrocketed in 2020 and 2021 as e-commerce boomed during the pandemic, with consumers flocking to online retailers for everything from face masks and Lysol wipes to patio furniture and dumbbells. Amazon and other digital retailers now face growing pressure to prove they can sustain the high-flying growth they enjoyed during the crisis, as the economy reopens and consumers head back to physical stores.

Amazon's latest earnings report did little to ease those concerns. The company posted its slowest revenue growth since the dot-com bust and provided an outlook for the current quarter that fell short of Wall Street's estimates.

Shifting market conditions have added another challenge. Investors began to rotate out of tech stocks at the end of last year, spurred by rising inflation and the specter of higher interest rates. That trend accelerated this year, after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, causing oil prices to spike further. Stocks have sold off further in recent days after the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday.

The sell-off has hit the technology sector particularly hard, with tech giants losing more than $1 trillion in value between Thursday and Monday.

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