Amazon shares jump 15% to $271.58, lift Nasdaq-100

Amazon's rally also came on the heels of a strong quarterly report and after a sharp pullback earlier in the summer had left the stock compressed relative to its recent highs. The shares closed at $271.58, up from $235.50 a day earlier, on volume of 128.9 million shares, while the Nasdaq-100 ended at 28,274.2 after the index had been under pressure for much of July.

Technical gauges pointed to a rebound that was powerful but not yet fully repaired. Amazon's close sat well above its 50-day moving average of $246.63 and its 200-day average of $235.01, while RSI readings near 64 suggested momentum had improved without yet reaching the overbought extremes seen in some previous spikes.

For investors, the message is that the AI trade still has enough force to override rotation into defensives or profit-taking in other megacap names. Amazon's move supports the view that cloud, advertising and AI spending remain central drivers of valuation in large-cap tech, even as the market continues to wrestle with shifting rate expectations and uneven earnings reactions across the sector.

The next test is whether Amazon can hold above the mid-$260s and keep momentum into the new month, with traders likely to watch follow-through in cloud peers, the broader Nasdaq and any fresh guidance on AI-related capital spending. If the rally fades, it would suggest the market is still rotating within tech rather than committing to a full resumption of the growth trade.