Stock Market Takes a Tumble, Amazon Shares Fall Sharply


Last week’s stock numbers were less than impressive for Amazon and technology companies across the market. Amazon, the largest shopping store in the world, fell $33.32, or 10%, down to $303.83 per share, while tech stocks continued their two-month downward spiral of selling. The reason for these drop-offs? As the AP reports, experts blame the disappointing quarterly performance results from Amazon as well as Ford, another domestic sales giant. Heated tensions between the U.S. and Russia didn’t help matters, either.

On the larger scale, there was selling across the board. The S&P 500 tumbled 15.21 points and the Dow Jones lost 140.19, resulting in losses of 0.8% and 0.9%, respectively. The Nasdaq composite dropped to 4,075.56 — an even bigger 1.8% loss. These reductions were enough to plunge all three major indexes into the red for the week.

Amazon’s losses could be blamed for dragging down other stocks in the S&P retail sector, resulting in retail becoming one of the most poorly performing sections of the entire market. They were in good company, with Netflix, Facebook, Twitter and Priceline all suffering losses in the same time frame.

What does this mean for investors? They’re selling, of course, and they have “little patience” for stocks that aren’t meeting their projected goals. That’s according to Scott Clemons, a chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, who told the Seattle Times that “the market is in a precarious position at the moment and overreacts to bad news far more than it did last year.”

Despite its poor performance in the stock market, Amazon is still reporting revenue gains even as the company’s spending continues to increase. That’s because the retail juggernaut has recently branched out into other businesses in the technology and content realms, CNBC reports. Much of this investing is happening in China, where Amazon faces competition from the Alibaba e-commerce company.

As far as new investors to the stock market goes, companies won’t likely be seeing the latest generation of workers building their portfolios any time soon. That’s because a UBS study published earlier this year found that most Millennials in the 21-to-36 age bracket saw their parents’ life savings negatively affected along with the industry itself in the 2000s. That’s making them more hesitant to invest at all, CNN reports.

Still, the stock market is fickle. Amazon’s stock might just be on the rise as we speak. We’ll just have to wait for this week’s numbers to find out for sure.