By Angela Palumbo

Amazon.com stock was on track for a standout day on Monday as Wall Street continued to celebrate the tech giant's strong cloud results.

Amazon shares jumped 5.3% to $285.73 Monday and were on pace for a new all-time closing high, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The stock was the best performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday, while the index gained 1.2%.

Amazon also hit a market value of $3 trillion for the first time ever on Monday. It's the fifth company to reach this milestone, after Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Alphabet. Amazon first closed above a $1 trillion market cap on Feb. 4, 2020 and notched a $2 trillion market cap on June 26, 2024.

The stock's rise comes after the e-commerce company posted better-than-expected second-quarter financials last week. But it wasn't just the company's strong earnings and revenue results that excited investors. Amazon also reported that revenue for Amazon Web Services jumped 37% from the prior year, which beat analysts' expectations of 31% growth.

AWS is Amazon's cloud-computing and artificial-intelligence service that allows customers to rent server space. This is a critical part of Amazon's business: Its strong revenue growth provides tangible evidence to Wall Street that there is demand for the infrastructure needed to power AI. That, in turn, can validate Amazon's massive capital spending as the company works to meet that demand.

"AWS was strong, with growth accelerating sharply to 37% year over year, the fastest growth printed in 18 quarters, which is astounding given the unit's scale," Morningstar Senior Equity Analyst Dan Romanoff said on Friday. "The surging demand spans both traditional and AI workloads and clearly supports management's massive capital investment plans."

Amazon will have to continue to impress with strong cloud numbers to keep investors this excited, particularly as its AI investments continue to shrink its cash stockpile. The company raised its 2026 capex guidance to $220 billion from $200 billion. Meanwhile, trailing 12-month free cash flow was negative $7.6 billion.

Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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August 03, 2026 12:08 ET (16:08 GMT)