Amazon surges with record $190b gain in value

A day after Facebook owner Meta Platforms (FB.O) suffered the deepest loss of stock market value in history for a US company, Amazon logged the greatest ever one-day increase in value.

Shares of the online retail and cloud computing giant surged 13.5 per cent on Friday following its blowout quarterly report, expanding its market capitalization by around $190 billion by the end of trading.

That beat Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) record $181 billion one-day gain in stock market value on Jan. 28 following the iPhone maker's own blockbuster quarterly report, according to Refinitiv data.

Amazon is now valued at about $1.6 trillion. With Meta Platforms' stock slipping 0.3 per cent on Friday, its value stood at about $660 billion.

Amazon's shares jumped after the company reported better-than-expected profits late on Thursday and said it was hiking the price of its annual US Prime subscriptions by 17 per cent. read more

Amazon's surge comes a day after Meta Platforms' stock market value plunged more than $200 billion in the biggest single-day loss for a US company after the social media giant issued a dismal forecast.

"After fighting the post-lockdown blues in 2021, we believe Amazon's fortunes have the potential to improve as 2022 unfolds," Monness Crespi Hardt analyst Brian White wrote in a research note. "Amazon is uniquely positioned to exit this crisis as one of the biggest beneficiaries of accelerated digital transformation."