Amazon was reported as the first company to lose $1 trillion in market value in 2022.
Reports in November 2022 said Amazon’s market capitalization had fallen by about $1 trillion from its pandemic-era peak. The decline reflected a sharp fall in its share price, which reduced the value of all outstanding shares even though the company continued operating.
Amazon’s stock had benefited enormously from the shift toward online shopping and cloud computing during the COVID-19 pandemic. As economies reopened, investors reassessed growth expectations, while inflation, higher interest rates, and weaker technology valuations pressured many large companies.
This description refers to a change in market capitalization, not a $1 trillion cash loss or a $1 trillion accounting charge. Other technology companies later experienced similarly dramatic valuation declines, but Amazon was widely identified as the first to cross that reported loss threshold.