Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaks during an Amazon Devices launch event in New York City, Feb. 26, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Amazon is slated to announce its first-quarter earnings after the market close on Thursday.
Here’s what analysts are looking for:
Earnings per share: $1.36 expected, according to LSEG
Revenue: $155.04 billion expected, according to LSEG
Wall Street is also looking at other key revenue numbers:
Amazon Web Services: $29.42 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
Advertising: $13.74 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
The topic of tariffs will hover over Amazon’s earnings report. Several of the company’s businesses are exposed to President Donald Trump‘s new tariffs, especially its core retail unit. Investors will want to know whether Trump’s 145% levy on China could impact Amazon’s margins, and whether uncertainty around the tariffs has caused shoppers to be more cautious with their spending.
“This was never approved and is not going to happen,” Amazon said in a blog post on Tuesday.
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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC last month the company is working to keep prices low for consumers, including by making strategic forward inventory buys on products overseas. But he acknowledged some third-party sellers will “need to pass that cost” of tariffs to consumers.
Analysts believe Trump’s tariffs could provide a boost to Amazon’s retail business, at least in the short term, as some shoppers have stocked up on items in anticipation of price hikes.
Retail sales rose 1.4% in March, after rising 0.2% in February, according to Commerce Department data, indicating there may have been a pull forward in spending.
Investors will be keeping a close eye on Amazon’s guidance for the current quarter. Some analysts have suggested the impact of Trump’s tariffs may not show up until then, or potentially the third quarter.
“A meaningful portion of products sold on the eCommerce platform (apparel, furniture, toys, accessories, consumer electronics, etc.) come from China, which may impact forward guidance,” Canaccord analysts wrote in a note to clients this week. “That said, we think Amazon’s vast product selection and structural advantages in price and logistics should enable it to mitigate some of the impact.”
Amazon could also potentially benefit from Trump’s executive order to end the de minimis trade exemption, which is set to take effect on Friday. Discount Chinese retailers Temu and Shein have relied heavily on the loophole, which allows shipments under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free, as a way to keep their prices low.
Both companies began raising prices last week, while Temu added “import charges” between 130% and 150% to some of its products. The prices of many of their products are more aligned with competitors like Amazon, but could still take more than a week to arrive.
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Amazon year to date stock performance
Outside of retail, Amazon’s cloud computing business and investments in AI will also be in focus. It’s been a mixed bag for Amazon’s cloud peers so far. Microsoftreported strong cloud growth in its third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, while Alphabet‘s cloud revenue fell just short of estimates last week.
For the quarter, analysts are projecting AWS revenue of $29.4 billion, according to StreetAccount. That would represent growth of 17.6%, compared to 18.9% growth in the fourth quarter.
Amazon last quarter pledged to boost capital expenditures to $100 billion this year, with the “vast majority” going toward AI services. The company has been rushing to roll out AI products across its businesses. In March, Amazon released a new AI agent for web browsers, and it began testing new AI assistants for its shopping and health platforms.
Amazon’s stock is down more than 13%year to date, while the Nasdaq has fallen less than a percent over the same stretch.
Several AI applications can be seen on a smartphone screen, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI, Grok and DeepSeek.
Philip Dulian | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Money keeps flowing into artificial intelligence companies but out of AI stocks.
In what looks like — once again — a scenario of the left hand scratching the right, Microsoft and Nvidia will be investing a combined $15 billion into Anthropic, while the OpenAI competitor has committed to buying compute power from its two newest stakeholders. At this point, it seems as if a big proportion of AI news can be summarized as: “Company X invests in Company Y, and Company Y will buy things from Company X.”
Okay, that’s unfair. There are a lot of developments in the AI world that are not about investments but, well, development. Google unveiled the third version of Gemini, its AI model, which Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI unit DeepMind, said “will be “trading cliché and flattery for genuine insight.” (But I still want an AI chatbot to compliment me on my curiosity when I ask how to cut a pear, so I’m not sure if that’s a pro for me.)
Investors, however, still appear skeptical about AI. Major names such as Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft tumbled Tuesday stateside, giving the S&P 500 its fourth straight session in the red — the longest decline since August.
And if Nvidia — “the top company within the top industry within the top sector,” as CFRA’s chief investment strategist Sam Stovall puts it — fails to satisfy investors’ expectations when it reports earnings Wednesday, we might be seeing the S&P 500’s slide extend.
Anthropic signs deal with Microsoft and Nvidia. Microsoft announced Tuesday it will invest up to $5 billion in the startup, while Nvidia will put in up to $10 billion. That puts Anthropic’s valuation around $350 billion, according to a source.
Google announces its latest AI model Gemini 3. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday it will require “less prompting” for desired answers. The update comes eight months after Google introduced Gemini 2.5, and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.
A Tesla Inc. robotaxi on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, on June 22, 2025.
Tim Goessman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tesla has obtained a permit to operate a ride-hailing service in Arizona, the state’s department of transportation said.
The electric vehicle company applied for a “transportation network company” permit on Nov. 13, and was approved on Monday, ADOT said in an emailed statement. Additional permits will be required before Tesla can operate a robotaxi service in Arizona.
In July, Tesla applied to conduct autonomous vehicle testing and operations in Phoenix, with and without human safety drivers on board. A month earlier, Tesla started a robotaxi pilot in Austin, Texas, with safety valets and remote operators. Tesla also operates a more traditional car service in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tesla plans to take human safety drivers out of its cars in Austin before the end of this year. The company is aiming to operate a commercial robotaxi service in Phoenix and several other U.S. cities before the end of 2026.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website, Tesla cars equipped with automated driving systems were involved in seven reported collisions following the launch of the company’s pilot in Texas.
Competitors including Alphabet’s Waymo in the U.S. and Baidu’s Apollo Go in China are way ahead in the nascent robotaxi ride-hailing market. In the Phoenix area, Waymo operates a sizable commercial business, with at least 400 autonomous vehicles, the company previously told CNBC. In May, Waymo said it had surpassed 10 million driverless trips served to riders across the U.S.
Baidu said in an earnings update on Tuesday that its Apollo Go service “provided 3.1 million fully driverless operational rides in the third quarter of 2025,” representing year-over-year growth of 212%.
Musk has been promising that Tesla will “solve” autonomy for years without reaching its goals. The world’s richest person has continued with the lofty pronouncements.
At the company’s 2025 shareholder meeting earlier this month, Musk said the “killer app” for self-driving technology is when people can “text and drive,” or “sleep and drive.”
“Before we allow the car to be driven without paying attention, we need to make sure it’s very safe,” Musk said. “We’re on the cusp of that. I know I’ve said that a few times. We really are at this point.”
Money keeps flowing into artificial intelligence companies but out of AI stocks.
In what looks like — once again — a scenario of the left hand scratching the right, Microsoft and Nvidia will be investing a combined $15 billion into Anthropic, while the OpenAI competitor has committed to buying compute power from its two newest stakeholders. At this point, it seems as if a big proportion of AI news can be summarized as: “Company X invests in Company Y, and Company Y will buy things from Company X.”
Okay, that’s unfair. There are a lot of developments in the AI world that are not about investments but, well, development. Google unveiled the third version of Gemini, its AI model, which Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI unit DeepMind, said “will be “trading cliché and flattery for genuine insight.” (But I still want an AI chatbot to compliment me on my curiosity when I ask how to cut a pear, so I’m not sure if that’s a pro for me.)
Investors, however, still appear skeptical about AI. Major names such as Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft tumbled Tuesday stateside, giving the S&P 500 its fourth straight session in the red — the longest decline since August.
And if Nvidia — “the top company within the top industry within the top sector,” as CFRA’s chief investment strategist Sam Stovall puts it — fails to satisfy investors’ expectations when it reports earnings Wednesday, we might be seeing the S&P 500’s slide extend.
Anthropic signs deal with Microsoft and Nvidia. Microsoft announced Tuesday it will invest up to $5 billion in the startup, while Nvidia will put in up to $10 billion. That puts Anthropic’s valuation around $350 billion, according to a source.
Google announces its latest AI model Gemini 3. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday it will require “less prompting” for desired answers. The update comes eight months after Google introduced Gemini 2.5, and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.
[PRO] Potentially resilient stocks amid AI slump. There are some global stocks and non-equity assets that could weather the turbulence in U.S. tech names happening recently, strategists told CNBC.
Miffed over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments related to Taiwan, China on Friday advised its citizens against travelling to the country. Japanese tourism-exposed stocks fell in the aftermath of that warning, while experts caution the impact could be more severe over a longer duration.
Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at Nomura Research Institute, said tensions between the two Asian powers could result in a 1.79 trillion yen drop in Japan’s GDP over the course of one year — a 0.29% decline in the country’s GDP.