Amazon.com, Inc. briefly saw its market capitalization again exceed $1 trillion during regular trading hours Friday before settling at $995.92 billion at the end of the day. Its stock closed at $2,008.72, up 7.4%, and reached a high of $2,055.72, which brought it past $ 1 trillion.
It almost hit the $1 trillion mark Thursday when it got to $927.5 billion after it released an expectation beating fourth quarter earnings report.
Amazon, which is America's largest online retailer, first became a trillion dollar company on Sept. 4, 2018 when its shares hit $2,050.49 shortly before noon. It attained this milestone again in October of the same year.
Amazon was the second U.S. public company to hit the $1 trillion valuation threshold in 2018 after Apple, Inc. became the first to cross the $1 trillion line on August 2.
On Thursday, Amazon's share price spiked 13.3% to $2,113.35 in after-hours trading after the company reported better than expected Q4 earnings. The stock opened on Wall Street at $1,858.00 and reached a high of $1,872.86 during regular trading hours.
Amazon reported Q4 earnings per share of $6.47 compared to expectations of $4.03 per share, according to analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. Q4 revenue stood at $87.44 billion as against expectations of $86.02 billion (Refinitiv). Amazon said it now expects to report revenue between $69 billion and $73 billion.
Operating profit rose 3% to $3.9 billion, much to the surprise of most analysts that expected this metric to fall to $2.1 billion at its lowest and $2.9 billion at its highest.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs, said its Q4 2019 revenue hit $9.95 billion. This larger than expected figure beat expectations of $9.81 billion, or a 32% growth rate, according to FactSet. AWS also posted 19% higher operating profits. It accounted for 67% of Amazon's total operating profits, up from 56% a year ago.
While AWS comprises only 11% of Amazon's total revenue, it remains the company's cash cow due to its market leader status. Of the $3.88 billion in operating income Amazon earned this Q4, $2.60 billion, or 67%, came from AWS.
The ebullience triggered by Thursday's positive earnings report carried over into Friday. On Friday morning, Amazon's shared jumped as much as 9.9% still propelled by the huge Q4 numbers. Analysts said investors still remained impressed with the positive numbers and with Amazon's outlook for the future.
Amazon's Thursday earnings surge also saw its CEO Jeff Bezos, already the world's richest person, boost his wealth by another $12.6 billion. Bezos was worth $116 billion before Amazon's Wall Street jump, according to Forbes. He's was worth some $128.6 billion as of Thursday evening. He added $730 million to his already huge net worth on Wednesday alone.
