Amazon became the first company to lose more than $1 trillion in market value.
Amazon passed that unwanted milestone in November 2022 as its share price fell sharply from the record levels reached during the pandemic-era technology boom. The decline reflected weaker growth expectations, higher operating costs, rising interest rates, and a broad sell-off in technology stocks.
Market-value losses are not the same as a company paying out $1 trillion in cash or losing that amount from its balance sheet. They represent a fall in the stock-market value of all outstanding shares. Because market capitalization changes with the share price, the figure can move quickly.
Amazon’s valuation had expanded dramatically during the 2010s and early 2020s as online retail, cloud computing, digital advertising, and subscription services grew. Amazon Web Services remained a major business even while the company’s total market value declined.