Copyright Business Insider
The Magnificent Seven gets a lot of credit for propelling the market's record-setting rally, but there's a clear laggard in the high-flying cohort. Among the biggest tech titans, Amazon is dead last in the ranking of stock returns over the last five years. It's also underperforming the benchmark S&P 500 in that time. Shares of the e-commerce giant have badly trailed behind the broader Magnificent Seven group, despite the company's efforts to position itself at the center of the AI and data center revolution. Amazon stock is up 43.8% over the last five years. Compare that gain to Nvidia, which is up 1521.1% and the broader S&P 500 index, which is up 109% over that time frame. Amazon has consistently beaten Wall Street's estimates for earnings in recent years, though investors have been jittery about other aspects of its performance. This year, questions about the impact of tariffs on its retail business have been front and center, but investors have also been concerned that it is being outdone in the AI arms race by the other so-called hyperscalers like Meta and Microsoft. The company laid off 14,000 workers this week. In a blog post, Amazon said the cuts are an attempt to tighten up its workforce in the age of AI. The tech giant will report earnings for the third quarter on Thursday after the closing bell.
