Wall Street ends higher as Amazon soothes AI jitters
- The San Juan Daily Star
- Aug 3
- 2 min read
Wall Street ended higher on Friday, lifted by Amazon as the tech heavyweight’s strong quarterly report bolstered investor confidence in AI-related stocks, while Apple dropped after its results disappointed investors.
Amazon.com surged over 15% after posting its biggest quarterly revenue growth in over four years. Its results, along with a similar report from Microsoft on Wednesday, alleviated investor concerns about potential overspending on AI data centers.
Worries that heavy investments in AI infrastructure may be taking too long to pay off rattled global markets this month and led to doubts about companies at the center of Wall Street’s rally in recent years.
“There were worries that Amazon’s spending was just moonshot spending, that it’s irresponsible spending, and (CEO) Andy Jassy just put those fears to bed,” said Jake Dollarhide, CEO of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The PHLX chip index edged up 0.07%, and it remains down over 20% from its June 22 record high close.
Apple tumbled 7.4% after warning that supply constraints would hurt growth, adding to worries that recent iPhone price hikes would weaken consumer demand.
Apple’s slump kept the S&P 500 technology index down 0.54%, despite gains in other tech stocks.
Microsoft rose 3%, adding to gains after surging over 15% on Thursday in its biggest one-day percentage gain since 2008 after it forecast stronger-than-expected cloud growth.
Monolithic Power Systems rose over 8% after forecasting third-quarter revenue above estimates.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.70% to end the session at 7,489.72 points. Even as the S&P 500 rose, declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by a 1.3-to-one ratio.
The Nasdaq gained 1% to 25,373.85 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.53% to 52,485.03 points.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was heavy, with 20.6 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 17.1 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.
For the week, the S&P 500 rose 1.05% and the Nasdaq added 1.59%.
Amazon’s results show that confidence in major technology investments depends on clear, measurable returns. While AI and cloud infrastructure attract most of the attention, efficient technologies such as open source Linux also play an important role by giving developers and organizations more control, flexibility, and transparency.
Amazon’s strong results show that investor confidence in AI still depends on whether major technology investments can produce measurable growth. Beyond cloud services and retail, AI is also influencing creative industries, including companies such as Ayopa Games, where new technologies can support game development, audience analysis, and publishing decisions.