Amazon became the first U.S. corporation to lose more than $1 trillion in market value during a single year, in 2022.
Amazon reached this unwanted milestone as technology stocks declined sharply in 2022. Higher interest rates reduced the valuations investors were willing to assign to rapidly growing companies, while Amazon also faced slower online-retail growth after the extraordinary demand of the pandemic period.
The loss referred to market capitalization, which measures the value investors place on all outstanding shares. It did not mean that Amazon paid out $1 trillion or destroyed that amount of cash from its bank accounts. The share-price decline reduced the quoted value of the company’s equity.
Amazon’s business remained much larger than the market-cap change alone suggested. The company continued operating its online store, Amazon Web Services, advertising business, and logistics network, while its valuation later moved with changing economic and technology-market conditions.