Amazon Stock Drops After Bezos Files Form 144 Amid Misreported AWS Earnings

Amazon's stock price dropped by 2.32% on August 4th to close at $277.42 after a Form 144 was filed, revealing that Jeff Bezos would be selling 15 million shares worth approximately $4.07 billion under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted in November 2025.

The market reaction was intense, with the stock price gapping down by $6.60 and surrendering its $3 trillion valuation for exactly one session. However, analysts argue that this drop is not reflective of Amazon's underlying business performance.

Key to understanding the situation is recognizing that AWS's segment operating income was misreported in Q2, with the company citing a total company operating income of $27.5 billion, which includes AWS's $16.6 billion in operating income.

This conflation led many analysts to overstate AWS's profitability by approximately 65%. In reality, AWS produced 21.1% of Amazon's revenue in Q2 but accounted for roughly 60.5% of its consolidated operating income.