Could Investing $1,000 in Amazon Make You Richer?

Key Points

• The goal of stock investing is to beat a passive index.

• Amazon’s sales and profit have been growing.

• Nonetheless, its share price has dropped over spending concerns.

• 10 stocks we like better than Amazon ›

Stock investing entails different strategies, but the goal remains simple. For instance, whether you pursue growth or dividend-paying stocks, you hope to make money. Of course, you have to take your risk tolerance into account.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has made investors a lot of money over the years, but its recent performance has been lackluster. Over the last year, which ended on Feb. 5, the stock lost 8.2% compared to the S&P 500‘s (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) 16.5% return.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now, when you join Stock Advisor. See the stocks »

Can the shares reverse course, making this a good long-term investment?

Image source: Getty Images.

Investing for growth

Amazon has three segments: North America, international, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The first two include a wide range of activities, like online selling, physical stores, devices (e.g., Echo), and advertising.

The North America and international segments produce the majority of the company’s sales. They accounted for 82% of Amazon’s $716.9 billion sales in 2025. However, they had $34.7 billion in operating income, or 43% of the total.

These businesses are doing fine, growing sales and profit year over year. However, AWS, its cloud-computing business, remains Amazon’s largest profit generator. The business grew operating income 14.5% to $45.6 billion.

With organizations clamoring for data and the large resources needed to build and maintain data centers, AWS has a competitive advantage. In fact, the business has the leading market share, 30% as of mid-2025, compared to 20% for Microsoft‘s Azure and 13% for Alphabet‘s Google Cloud.

With the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI), the business’ growth could accelerate.

The sell-off and valuation

Despite strong sales and profit growth, investors sent the stock down following the company’s fourth-quarter earnings release on Feb. 5. That’s because management outlined plans to boost capital expenditures to $200 billion this year.

That’s significantly higher than 2025’s $131.8 billion. And Amazon will outspend its operating cash flow unless there’s a marked increase from the $139.5 billion generated last year.

However, this shouldn’t concern long-term investors. Management believes this will produce a significant return on capital, which would benefit shareholders. After all, Amazon has unique opportunities, including building data centers to meet AI demand.

With the shares trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 28, down from 40 a year ago, the valuation has become more attractive. Over 10 years, Amazon has a median P/E multiple of 82. It also has a better valuation than the S&P 500, which has a P/E ratio of 30.

Of course, the question is, will you be better off investing in Amazon or an index fund, such as one replicating the S&P 500? While short-term stock price movements are difficult to predict, I believe investors have the opportunity to make more by purchasing Amazon’s stock based on its valuation and growth prospects.

Should you buy stock in Amazon right now?

Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $409,108!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,145,980!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 886% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 193% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of February 14, 2026.

Lawrence Rothman, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.