Stocks
October 23, 2026
American Express Stock Slides Despite Profit Beat as 5% Job Cuts Loom
- Amazon stock faces strong AWS demand, with major capacity commitments largely booked for 2027 and extending into 2028
- BofA maintained its Buy rating and $600 Microsoft price target as Amazon works through power and memory constraints
- MarketCapOf’s October comparison shows $2,000 growing to $2,041.56 in Microsoft versus $1,997.58 in Amazon
Amazon stock has a new twist, with a demand story taking the front stage. Customers are committing to AWS computing capacity years ahead, even as Andy Jassy argues that running AI remains too expensive for adoption. Amidst this, Microsoft stock has its own backing, with Bank of America standing by a $600 target. For Amazon shareholders, a crowded order book leaves an important question unanswered which is how quickly can the company deliver what customers want?
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Amazon Stock Outlook as AWS Bookings Extend Into 2028
Speaking on a recent episode of an Andreessen Horowitz podcast, Jassy said AWS capacity was largely booked through 2027, with substantial commitments extending into 2028. Those commitments help explain Amazon’s willingness to keep investing in AI infrastructure.
There is an important distinction in his comments. Amazon still reserves capacity for on-demand customers using services such as Bedrock and EC2. The large commitments are what Jassy described as largely sold out. Customers have not suddenly lost access to AWS.
Fulfilling those bookings is the harder part. Jassy pointed to shortages of data centers, electricity, and memory, saying he did not expect those constraints to disappear in 2027. Strong AWS demand also extends beyond AI, forcing decisions about how much memory to allocate to AI chips versus other workloads.
Cost remains another obstacle. Jassy described AI inference as “an order of magnitude too expensive” for adoption and pointed to Amazon’s Trainium chips as part of the effort to bring costs down. His argument is that cheaper computing could attract more usage, adding demand even while Amazon works through existing capacity constraints.
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How Amazon Stock Compares With Microsoft
Microsoft provides a useful comparison through its competing Azure business. On October 23, BofA analyst Tal Liani reaffirmed a Buy rating and $600 price target, according to TipRanks. This was a maintained target, rather than a fresh increase.
The recent share-price comparison favors Microsoft. MarketCapOf’s stock ROI calculator, covering October 1–24, shows a hypothetical $2,000 investment in Microsoft worth $2,041.56, a gain of approximately 2.08%. The same investment in Amazon comes to $1,997.58, down roughly 0.12%. That leaves Microsoft ahead by $43.98 over the selected period.
Those returns measure a short stretch of trading. For Amazon, the longer-term question is whether booked demand becomes revenue quickly enough to justify the money being spent on capacity.
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