Amazon’s 1.44% Drop on Third-Highest Volume Underscores AWS Growth Struggles vs. Microsoft Azure Google Cloud

On August 4, 2025, Amazon (AMZN) closed with a 1.44% decline, trading at a volume of $16.6 billion—the third-highest on the day. The drop follows persistent concerns over its cloud division, AWS, which reported 17.5% year-over-year revenue growth to $30.9 billion. While this aligns with its three-quarter average, it lags behind Microsoft Azure’s 26% and Google Cloud’s 32% increases. Analysts highlight AWS’s capacity constraints and slower AI adoption as key challenges, with CEO Andy Jassy citing power shortages and server delays as bottlenecks.

Investors are scrutinizing Amazon’s AI investments, particularly its partnership with Anthropic, which trails Microsoft’s OpenAI in market influence. RBC’s Brad Erickson notes Amazon’s Bedrock platform offers diverse AI models, potentially attracting developers beyond OpenAI’s ecosystem. However, capital expenditures—$31 billion in Q2—have yet to translate into proportional AWS growth. Startup-driven revenue volatility and weak backlog expansion further cloud near-term outlooks, despite long-term optimism about AI-driven services.

The strategy of purchasing the top 500 stocks by daily trading volume and holding them for one day achieved a 166.71% return from 2022 to the present, outperforming the benchmark by 137.53%. This highlights liquidity concentration’s role in short-term gains, particularly in volatile markets, where high-volume stocks like Amazon exhibit pronounced price movements driven by institutional and algorithmic activity.