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Amazon beats on Q2 earnings, but Q3 profit forecast comes in light; capex goes sky-high

Amazon posted quarterly results on Thursday afternoon.

Jon Keegan

Amazon blew past Wall Street’s expectations for second-quarter sales and profit, and the tech giant smashed the accelerator pedal on capex spending.

Still, shares were down 3.5% in recent after-hours trading, as its forecast for third-quarter operating profit came in light.

The company posted $167.7 billion in sales for Q2, growing 13% from the same quarter a year earlier and topping analysts’ expectations of $162.19 billion.

Earnings per share came in at $1.68, beating analysts’ expectations of $1.33, according to FactSet.

The company’s capital expenditures — a number that has been watched closely in recent quarters as tech giants spend bucketloads of money to build the infrastructure to power AI — totaled $32.18 billion, up a whopping 83% from a year earlier. That compared to analysts’ forecasts of $26.36 billion and first-quarter spending of $25 billion.

Amazon’s AWS cloud business saw revenue grow 17.5% year on year to $30.9 billion, powered by huge demand for AI. The Street was expecting $30.817 billion.

The company also gave third-quarter guidance, with its operating income forecast falling mostly below Wall Street’s consensus. It anticipates operating income of $15.5 billion to $20.5 billion, compared to estimates of $19.49 billion. Amazon said it expects sales of $174 billion to $179.5 billion, versus Wall Street’s consensus of $173.27 billion.

Some highlights for the quarter:

  • Advertising revenue was $15.694 billion, up 23% year on year. The company has joined others in the industry by offering generative-AI tools for advertisers to easily make ads from text prompts.

  • Subscription revenue (Amazon Prime, audiobooks, etc.) was up 12% year on year, delivering $12.208 billion for the quarter.

  • In June, Amazon announced it was expanding its same-day shipping to over 4,000 rural towns in a big push to reach more customers.

  • This year saw a longer four-day Prime Day event (which may have had slower sales than expected).

  • The new AI-enhanced Alexa+ “early access” program has been expanded to “millions of customers.”

  • The company introduced “Vulcan,” a new robot that can see, touch, and navigate human spaces.

  • “AI Zones” are being developed in Saudi Arabia (with HUMAIN) and Korea (with SK Group).

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said AI was starting to seep into many parts of the company’s business, including the new AI-upgraded Alexa, shopping agents, and improvements to the company’s fleet of robots. In the earnings release, Jassy said:

“Our AI progress across the board continues to improve our customer experiences, speed of innovation, operational efficiency, and business growth, and I’m excited for what lies ahead.”

AI may also be affecting the company’s workforce of 1.5 million employees. Jassy told staff in June that productivity boosts from AI will “reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”

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Luke Kawa

Opendoor surges on bullish options bets as traders look to potential real estate tokenization

Opendoor Technologies is surging on Friday amid bullish options bets and social media posts referencing unconfirmed rumors about the company.

The stock moved higher in the premarket session after the soft inflation report boosted stocks and briefly pushed long-term bond yields lower (positive for a real estate company). But the real gains came after the opening bell rang and options demand picked up.

As of 12:11 p.m. ET, roughly 664,000 call options have changed hands versus a 10-day average of about 364,000 for a full session.

What seems to be galvanizing members of the “$OPEN Army” is the potential for the company to pursue the tokenization of real-world assets, with Robinhood often bandied about as a potential partner in this endeavor.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Opendoor bulls have often pointed to signs that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev appears to be fond of the company, from what appeared on-screen during a demo of a social trading feature at HOOD’s conference in Las Vegas in September to offering support to Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian in setting up an opportunity for retail shareholders to ask questions during the online real estate company’s next earnings call.

Opendoor is currently in a quiet period ahead of earnings, which restricts what type of announcements a company can make.

The call options seeing the most demand expire this Friday with strike prices of $8, $8.50, and $9.

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Luke Kawa

Beyond Meat gains amid slightly better-than-expected Q3 sales, positive commentary on legal issues

Shares of Beyond Meat built on their premarket gains after the plant-based meat seller reported preliminary Q3 sales a bit ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, before paring this advance after the market opened.

For the three months ended September 27, management said net revenue would be approximately $70 million. That’s in line with their guidance range of $68 million to $73 million, but Wall Street was expecting sales to skew toward the lower end of that range, at $68.7 million.

However, its anticipated gross margin of 10% to 11% is lower than analysts had been expecting (13.8%). That’s still the case even adjusting for expenses related to its downsizing of operations in China, which would have left margins around 12% to 13%, per Beyond.

Perhaps more importantly, the company provided positive commentary regarding arbitration discussions with a former co-manufacturer that appear to bring it closer to a resolution while limiting potential damages:

“As previously disclosed, in March 2024, a former co-manufacturer brought an action against the Company in a confidential arbitration proceeding claiming that the Company inappropriately terminated its agreement with the co-manufacturer and claimed damages of at least $73.0 million. On September 15, 2025, the arbitrator issued an interim award (the ‘Interim Award’) and found that the Company had a valid basis to terminate the agreement with the Manufacturer. The details of the Interim Award are confidential, and a final arbitration award has not been issued. Additional proceedings will be held to determine the award of attorneys’ fees, prejudgment interest and costs, if any, before a final arbitration award will be issued. On September 25, 2025, the Manufacturer filed a request with the arbitrator to re-open the arbitration hearing. On September 29, 2025, the Company opposed this request. On October 20, 2025, the arbitrator denied the Manufacturer’s request.”

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