Amazon's share price has been recorded on every trading day since May 1997, and the long-run result is easy to read from any chart. What a chart hides is the order of events: how deep each fall went, what the company was doing while it happened, and how long the price took to come back. Those are the questions that matter to anyone who holds the stock through its next fall, because the price history shows that another one has always come.
Tokenized Amazon, traded as AMZNX and listed on BloFin as the AMZNX/USDT Spot pair, is a token that tracks Amazon's share price, so the share's history is the clearest guide to what holding it can feel like.
How has Amazon stock performed since its 1997 IPO?
Amazon stock has risen from a split-adjusted IPO price of $0.075 in May 1997 to a close of $249.27 on September 23, 2026, about 3,300 times higher, or 31.8% a year. The route ran through nine falls of 30% or more from a record close, the deepest a 94% collapse after the dot-com bubble (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history).
Amazon's historical prices are normally quoted as split-adjusted closes, because the stock has split four times: 2-for-1 in 1998, 3-for-1 and 2-for-1 in 1999, and 20-for-1 in 2022. One share bought at the IPO has become 240 (source: Amazon investor relations FAQ). Price histories divide each earlier price by the splits that came after it, so a price from between September 1999 and June 2022 is divided by 20, and one from before June 1998 by 240. That is why the $18.00 offer price appears as $0.075. Because Amazon has never paid a dividend, the whole return in its price history comes from the share price (source: Amazon investor relations FAQ).
A record close is the highest close to date, an all-time closing high, and a drawdown is the fall from a record close to the lowest close before the price sets a new record. Measured that way on daily closes, Amazon's price history falls into four periods (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). A bubble ran from 1997 to 1999, and a crash and a slow repair followed from 2000 to 2009. A long climb followed, with only two falls of 30% or more, and it took the share from $6.73 at the end of 2009 to a record close of $186.57 on July 8, 2021, nearly 28 times higher. The fourth period began at that record and is still running: it opened with the deepest fall from a record close since the dot-com crash, and it includes the record close of August 2026.
Amazon's 1997 IPO and the dot-com crash
Amazon listed on May 15, 1997 at $18.00 a share and rose 71 times, to a split-adjusted record close of $5.33, by December 10, 1999. The dot-com crash then took 94% off the price by September 2001, and the share needed nearly ten years to regain its 1999 record.
The shares closed their first day at $23.50, already 31% above the offer price, and 1998 alone added 966% to the split-adjusted price (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). Amazon had opened its online store only in July 1995 (source: Amazon investor relations FAQ). Even the climb was violent. The share fell 47.7% between July and September 1998, 51.5% in five weeks in early 1999, and 59.3% between April and August 1999. Each fall started from a record close, and each was made back within eight months. The company was also borrowing heavily to build: financing brought in $1.1 billion in 1999, mainly from convertible notes sold that February (source: Amazon 2000 Form 10-K405). A convertible note is a loan that the lender can later exchange for shares.
Amazon's annual reports put the share's Nasdaq high at $113.00 in the fourth quarter of 1999 (source: Amazon 2000 Form 10-K405). They put its low at $5.97 in the third quarter of 2001, a fall of 94.7% on those high and low prices, both quoted before the 2022 split (source: Amazon 2001 Form 10-K405). On split-adjusted closes the fall ran from $5.33 to $0.30 on September 28, 2001, a drop of 94.4%, while Invesco QQQ, a fund that tracks the Nasdaq-100 index, fell 63.7% between the same two dates (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history) (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history). The Nasdaq-100 is made up of the 100 largest non-financial companies traded on the Nasdaq market (source: Invesco QQQ).
The company answered with cuts. It had lost money in every quarter of 1999, 2000 and the first nine months of 2001. A restructuring announced in January 2001 closed its fulfillment center in McDonough, Georgia, and cut 1,327 jobs by the year's end (source: Amazon 2001 Form 10-K405). In the fourth quarter of 2001 it reported a net profit of $5 million on sales of $1.1 billion, its first billion-dollar quarter (source: Amazon fourth-quarter 2001 results).
The share price turned before the business was safe, rising 74.6% in 2002 and 178.6% in 2003, but a 94% fall leaves a price that has to rise almost eighteenfold to recover. The close did not pass its December 1999 record until October 23, 2009. Inside that decade the share fell another 65.3% between October 2007 and November 2008, against 52.8% for the Nasdaq-100 fund (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history) (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history).
The 2015 AWS disclosure and the Whole Foods deal
Amazon first reported its cloud business, Amazon Web Services (AWS), as a separate segment in April 2015. The share rose 14.1% the day after those results, against 1.4% for the Nasdaq-100 fund (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history) (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history). The roughly $13.7 billion Whole Foods deal of June 16, 2017 lifted Amazon's share 2.4% that day.
From that quarter, Amazon's reportable segments became North America, International and AWS (source: Amazon Q1 2015 Form 10-Q). The results, released on April 23, 2015, showed AWS sales of $1.6 billion for the quarter and an operating income of $265 million, which is the profit left after the costs of running the business (source: Amazon Q1 2015 results). Jeff Bezos described it as a $5 billion business that was accelerating (source: Amazon Q1 2015 results). Investors could now see the cloud business's own profit and margin, about 17% of its sales against about 4% for North America (source: Amazon Q1 2015 results). Amazon still reports its business segments as North America, International and AWS (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K).
Amazon finished 2015 up 117.8% against 8.3% for the Nasdaq-100 fund, ending the year at $33.79, more than double where it began (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history) (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history).
On June 16, 2017 Amazon agreed to buy Whole Foods Market for $42 a share in cash, a deal valued at about $13.7 billion including Whole Foods' net debt (source: Amazon and Whole Foods announcement). Amazon's own share rose 2.4% that day, a sixth of its rise after the AWS disclosure, while the Nasdaq-100 fund slipped 0.7% (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history) (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history).
Amazon's trillion-dollar milestones
Amazon's market value first reached $1 trillion during trading on September 4, 2018 (source: CNBC, September 4, 2018). It first closed above $2 trillion on June 26, 2024 (source: CNBC, June 26, 2024). It passed $3 trillion on August 3, 2026 (source: CNBC, August 3, 2026). That day's close, $284.02, is Amazon's all-time closing high (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history).
The first trillion took 21 years from the IPO, and the third took just over two. On the first of those days the share touched $2,050.50 in morning trading, just above the $2,050.27 needed for $1 trillion, and closed at $2,039.51, worth about $995 billion (source: CNBC, September 4, 2018). That close reads as $101.98 after the 2022 split. The value passed $1 trillion again in 2020, and on June 26, 2024 the share closed up 3.9% at $193.61, taking it past $2 trillion for the first time (source: CNBC, June 26, 2024). On August 3, 2026 the share hit a new high after second-quarter results in which AWS revenue reached $42.2 billion, taking the market value above $3 trillion (source: CNBC, August 3, 2026). It closed 4.6% higher that day (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history).
A milestone is a round number, and what followed each of the three differed widely. The 2018 milestone day was also the record close before a 34.1% fall to December 24, 2018, against 22.8% for the Nasdaq-100 fund (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history) (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history). The price did not regain it until February 4, 2020. After the 2024 milestone the share rose another 25% to a record close on February 4, 2025. The 2026 milestone day is still the record close, and on September 23, 2026 the share closed at $249.27, 12.2% below it.
Why Amazon stock halved in 2022
Amazon's share price fell 56.1% from a record close of $186.57 on July 8, 2021 to $81.82 on December 28, 2022 (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). The Nasdaq-100 fund fell 27.5% between the same two dates (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history). Amazon added news of its own in April 2022: a quarterly loss and a weak forecast.
For the first quarter of 2022 Amazon reported a net loss of $3.8 billion, which included a $7.6 billion pre-tax loss on the value of its shareholding in Rivian Automotive (source: Amazon Q1 2022 results). In the same release, Andy Jassy said consumer growth of 39% in 2020 had required Amazon to double the fulfillment network it built over its first 25 years, and to do it in 24 months. The company also gave guidance, its own forecast for the next quarter, of an operating result between a $1.0 billion loss and a $3.0 billion profit, against $7.7 billion a year earlier. The share fell 14.0% on April 29, 2022, the day after the release, while the Nasdaq-100 fund fell 4.5% (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history) (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history).
The recovery took until April 11, 2024, when the close finally passed the July 2021 record, 1,008 days after the peak (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). For a buyer at that record, it meant waiting almost three years to break even. That is fast beside the dot-com decade and slow beside every other fall since. Two of the forces that move the Amazon share price in a normal quarter, a results release and a guidance range, were at work in this fall.
Amazon stock returns under Bezos and Jassy
Under Jeff Bezos, chief executive from May 1996 until July 2021, the share rose about 2,300 times from its $0.075 split-adjusted IPO price. Under Andy Jassy, chief executive since July 2021, it rose 44.9% to September 23, 2026, measured from the June 30, 2021 close of $172.01.
Bezos became executive chair in July 2021, and Jassy had run AWS as its chief executive from 2016 until he took over (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). The Bezos years hold nearly all of the price history's extremes: the bubble, the 94% crash and its decade of repair, the AWS disclosure and the first $1 trillion. The Jassy years hold the 2022 halving and the 30.9% fall in the spring of 2025 (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). They also hold the $2 trillion and $3 trillion marks (source: CNBC, June 26, 2024) (source: CNBC, August 3, 2026). Measured from the first-day close of $23.50, or $0.0979 split-adjusted, the gain under Bezos is about 1,760 times instead, which is still the larger part of the whole price history by far.
Set against the Nasdaq-100 fund, Jassy's years look weaker. From the June 30, 2021 close to September 23, 2026, Amazon rose 44.9% (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). Over the same dates the Nasdaq-100 fund's price rose 109.1%, before its dividends (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history). The 2022 halving falls entirely inside that span, and so does the rise of more than three times from the December 2022 low to the August 2026 record. A chief executive's tenure is a convenient way to divide the price history, but the share moved with the whole technology market in both periods, falling and recovering alongside it.
Amazon stock price by year
Amazon stock rose in 20 of the 28 full calendar years from 1998 to 2025 and fell in eight. Its worst year was 2000, when the share lost 79.6%, and its best was 1998, when it gained 966.4%. By September 23, 2026 the share was up 8.0% for the year (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history).
Five of the eight down years came before 2010: 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006 and 2008. Since then the share has fallen in only three calendar years, 2011, 2014 and 2022, and risen in the other thirteen (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). The two worst years after the dot-com crash were each followed by a strong one. The share fell 44.6% in 2008 and rose 162.3% in 2009, and it fell 49.6% in 2022 and rose 80.9% in 2023 (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history).
A calendar year can hide a deep fall inside it. The share ended 2018 up 28.4%, yet between its September record and Christmas Eve that year it lost 34.1% (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). That is why a drawdown is measured from a record close rather than from a year end.
The closes are the last close of each year, split-adjusted, and each change runs from one year-end close to the next (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history).
Year | Year-end close (split-adjusted) | Change in the year |
|---|---|---|
1997 | $0.25 | Listed May 15 |
1998 | $2.68 | +966.4% |
1999 | $3.81 | +42.2% |
2000 | $0.78 | −79.6% |
2001 | $0.54 | −30.5% |
2002 | $0.94 | +74.6% |
2003 | $2.63 | +178.6% |
2004 | $2.21 | −15.8% |
2005 | $2.36 | +6.5% |
2006 | $1.97 | −16.3% |
2007 | $4.63 | +134.8% |
2008 | $2.56 | −44.6% |
2009 | $6.73 | +162.3% |
2010 | $9.00 | +33.8% |
2011 | $8.66 | −3.8% |
2012 | $12.54 | +44.9% |
2013 | $19.94 | +59.0% |
2014 | $15.52 | −22.2% |
2015 | $33.79 | +117.8% |
2016 | $37.49 | +10.9% |
2017 | $58.47 | +56.0% |
2018 | $75.10 | +28.4% |
2019 | $92.39 | +23.0% |
2020 | $162.85 | +76.3% |
2021 | $166.72 | +2.4% |
2022 | $84.00 | −49.6% |
2023 | $151.94 | +80.9% |
2024 | $219.39 | +44.4% |
2025 | $230.82 | +5.2% |
2026 | $249.27 (Sep 23) | +8.0% to Sep 23 |
Every Amazon drawdown of 30% or more
Amazon has fallen 30% or more from a record close nine times since 1997, five of them before the end of 2001. In each fall where a comparison exists, it dropped further than the Nasdaq-100 fund between the same dates, and since 2009 each has recovered to its peak within 133 to 1,008 days.
Record close | Lowest close | Fall | Invesco QQQ, same dates | First close back at the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Oct 29, 1997, $0.27 | Nov 12, 1997, $0.19 | −30.0% | Fund launched 1999 | Feb 23, 1998 |
Jul 6, 1998, $1.16 | Sep 15, 1998, $0.61 | −47.7% | Fund launched 1999 | Nov 17, 1998 |
Jan 11, 1999, $4.62 | Feb 18, 1999, $2.24 | −51.5% | Fund launched 1999 | Apr 5, 1999 |
Apr 23, 1999, $5.25 | Aug 9, 1999, $2.14 | −59.3% | −1.3% | Dec 10, 1999 |
Dec 10, 1999, $5.33 | Sep 28, 2001, $0.30 | −94.4% | −63.7% | Oct 23, 2009 |
Dec 29, 2015, $34.70 | Feb 9, 2016, $24.10 | −30.5% | −15.7% | May 10, 2016 |
Sep 4, 2018, $101.98 | Dec 24, 2018, $67.20 | −34.1% | −22.8% | Feb 4, 2020 |
Jul 8, 2021, $186.57 | Dec 28, 2022, $81.82 | −56.1% | −27.5% | Apr 11, 2024 |
Feb 4, 2025, $242.06 | Apr 21, 2025, $167.32 | −30.9% | −17.4% | Oct 31, 2025 |
All figures are split-adjusted closes (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history) (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history). Invesco QQQ began trading on March 10, 1999.
The latest of the nine falls, in the spring of 2025, carried the share 30.9% lower while the fund lost 17.4% (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history) (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history). Over the fund's whole life, Amazon's gains have been larger than the fund's as well. From the fund's first day of trading on March 10, 1999 to September 23, 2026, Amazon's close rose about 73 times and the fund's about 14.5 times, before the fund's dividends. Since the dot-com record was regained in October 2009 there have been four such falls in 17 years (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). A price history of deeper falls and larger gains is one input into whether Amazon stock is a good investment for you.
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What Amazon's price cycles mean for an AMZNX holder
AMZNX follows the price of Amazon stock (AMZN), so a holder is exposed to cycles like the ones the share has shown. On September 24, 2026 the AMZNX/USDT pair traded at 248.28, close to the share's previous close of $249.27, so the falls in Amazon's price history are the ones to plan for.
Where you buy changes what a fall means to you. Say you had bought Amazon shares at the record close of $242.06 on February 4, 2025. Eleven weeks later your holding was worth 30.9% less, at $167.32, and it was back at your price on October 31, 2025. Had you bought at that April 21, 2025 low instead, the same holding would have been worth 49.0% more by September 23, 2026 (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history).
That gives three practical checks before you buy. Size the holding so that a fall of 30% or more is survivable, because Amazon's price history has included one every few years, and if such a fall would force you to sell, the holding is too large. Set your time horizon against how long recoveries have taken rather than against the best years. And decide in advance whether you want a single company's full swings at all. A fund tracking the Nasdaq-100 has fallen less than Amazon in each of Amazon's falls of 30% or more since the fund began trading, and over that whole span it has also risen far less.
Looking to gain exposure to Amazon? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and navigate to the AMZNX/USDT Spot trading page or AMZNUSDT Perpetual page.
Frequently asked questions
How much would $1,000 invested in Amazon's IPO be worth today?
About $3.3 million at the $18.00 offer price. That sum bought 55.56 shares, which the four splits turned into about 13,333 (source: Amazon investor relations FAQ). At the September 23, 2026 close of $249.27 they were worth $3.32 million (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). A buyer at the first-day close of $23.50 got 42.55 shares instead, about 10,213 after the splits and worth about $2.55 million on the same date. Both figures are price alone, before tax, and both assume the shares were held through the 94% crash.
What was Amazon's lowest stock price ever?
Amazon's lowest close was $16.75 a share on May 22, 1997, a week after it listed and below its $18.00 offer price, or about $0.07 after the four stock splits (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). The share never closed that low again. From July 1997 onward its lowest close was about $0.076 split-adjusted, and even the dot-com crash bottomed at $0.30 in September 2001, about four times that first low.
What would $10,000 invested in Amazon 10 or 20 years ago be worth now?
About $61,900 over ten years and about $1.62 million over twenty, before tax. The close of $40.29 on September 23, 2016 had become $249.27 by September 23, 2026, a gain of about 519%, or 20.0% a year. Twenty years back, the close was $1.54 on September 22, 2006, so the price rose about 162 times (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). The ten-year holder still sat through three falls of 30% or more, including the 56.1% drop of 2021 and 2022.
Did Amazon stock fall in the 2020 Covid crash?
It fell 22.7% from its close on February 19, 2020 to March 12, 2020, passed its February close again on April 14, 2020, and ended the year well above where it began (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history). The Nasdaq-100 fund fell 25.2% between the same February and March dates (source: Yahoo Finance QQQ history). Of Amazon's falls of 20% or more from a record close since the fund began trading, the Covid fall is the only one in which the fund fell further than the share.
Does AMZNX have the same price history as Amazon stock?
AMZNX follows the Amazon share price from the day the token was issued and has no trading record of its own before then, so the history from 1997 onward is the share's. AMZNX is the Amazon xStock, a tracker certificate issued by Backed Assets that tracks the price of Amazon.com (source: Amazon xStock product page). Each xStock is backed one for one by the share it tracks (source: xStocks FAQ). Any chart of AMZNX starts at its listing, so the drawdowns in Amazon's own price history are the best guide available to the falls a holder may see.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include Amazon's investor relations FAQ, its Forms 10-K405, 10-Q and 10-K, and its results and merger releases filed with the SEC; CNBC's reports of the three market-value milestones; Invesco's description of the QQQ fund; Backed's Amazon xStock product page and the xStocks FAQ; and Yahoo Finance daily price history for Amazon and Invesco QQQ, each read on September 24, 2026.
Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold Amazon in any form. Amazon's share has fallen 30% or more from a record close nine times since 1997, once by 94%. The 2022 fall took 1,008 days to recover. AMZNX follows the share, so a holder carries falls of that kind. On the AMZNUSDT Perpetual, a much smaller move can liquidate a leveraged position. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.