# Amazon Shares End Oct. 20 Below Record Ahead of Q3 Earnings Call

By John Kim

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/business/36295
Published: 2026-10-21T03:41:41.000Z
Updated: 2026-10-21T03:41:41.000Z
Section: Business

> AWS sales rose 37% in the quarter ended June 30, while Amazon’s free cash flow turned negative over the 12 months through that date.

Amazon shares closed Oct. 20 below their August record, putting the Oct. 29 earnings call in focus for investors weighing cloud growth against the cash demands of AI investment.

The stock reached a record closing price of $284.02 on Aug. 3. Its Oct. 20 close was below that mark. The upcoming results will give investors a new period to compare with Amazon’s second-quarter performance.

In the quarter ended June 30, Amazon Web Services (AWS) recorded $42.2 billion in sales, a 37% increase from a year earlier. Operating income at the cloud unit climbed to $16.6 billion from $10.2 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

Amazon President and CEO Andy Jassy called the pace “our fastest growth in 18 quarters.” AWS also reached a $169 billion annualized revenue run rate after the quarter. That figure extends its quarterly pace over a year; it does not represent revenue earned during a separate 12-month period.

The cash-flow figures cover a different span. For the 12 months ended June 30, Amazon’s operating cash flow increased 33% to $161.4 billion. Free cash flow shifted to a $7.6 billion outflow from an $18.2 billion inflow in the preceding 12 months. Those figures show why the quarter’s AWS operating gain and companywide cash generation need separate comparisons.

Net purchases of property and equipment rose $66.1 billion from a year earlier, primarily reflecting AI investment. That increase was the main driver of the free-cash-flow decline.

Amazon Bedrock had hundreds of thousands of customers, whose second-quarter spending exceeded their combined spending in all previous quarters. Amazon did not disclose a separate revenue total for the AI service. AWS sales and operating income therefore remain the disclosed financial measures for the broader cloud unit.

For the third quarter, Amazon projected companywide net sales of $197 billion to $202 billion and operating income of $22.5 billion to $26.5 billion. It provided no separate AWS forecast. Its third-quarter earnings conference call is scheduled for Oct. 29 at 5 p.m. ET (21:00 UTC).