(Bloomberg) – Amazon.com Inc. was the first public company in the world to lose a trillion dollars in market value as a combination of rising inflation, tightening monetary policy and disappointing earnings updates triggered a sell-off Historical stocks this year.
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Shares of the e-commerce and cloud computing company fell 4.3% on Wednesday, pushing its market value to about $879 billion from a record close of $1.88 trillion. in July 2021. Amazon and Microsoft Corp. unwelcome milestone, with the software maker Windows behind after losing $889 billion from its November 2021 peak.
While tech and growth stocks were chastised throughout the year, fears of a recession further dampened sentiment in the sector. The top five US tech companies by revenue have seen nearly $4 trillion in market value evaporate this year.
The world’s largest online retailer has spent the year adjusting to a marked slowdown in e-commerce growth as shoppers resume pre-pandemic habits. Its shares fell nearly 50% amid slowing sales, soaring costs and soaring interest rates. Since the start of the year, cofounder Jeff Bezos has seen his fortune drop by about $83 billion to $109 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Last month, Amazon predicted the slowest holiday quarter revenue growth in the company’s history as shoppers reduce spending in the face of an uncertain economic situation. That brought its market value below $1 trillion for the first time since a pandemic-fueled rally in tech stocks more than two years ago.
–With support from Divya Balji, Tom Contiliano and Jack Witzig.
(Updated with closing prices throughout.)
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