Trading Amazon Around the Holiday Quarter and Prime Day

Big retailers earn a large part of their year in the weeks before the winter holidays. They plan their biggest sales months ahead, so the dates are public long before the shopping starts. Investors watch that calendar, because a strong or weak season shows up in the results and the share price.

The hard part is that the dates are known while the outcome is not. The company reports on the season weeks after it ends. Meanwhile the stock market closes on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and shuts early on the days next to them, while news about the season keeps coming in.

Tokenized shares and perpetual contracts change one part of that picture. They keep trading while the exchange is closed, so you can act on a holiday, but you also carry any move that builds up before the exchange opens again.

On BloFin, Amazon comes in both forms. Tokenized Amazon (AMZNX) tracks the share and trades as the AMZNX/USDT Spot pair, and the AMZNUSDT Perpetual is a contract on Amazon's price that you can trade with leverage. The two behave in their own ways across Prime Day, the holiday quarter and the February report that closes it.

What is trading Amazon around the holiday quarter and Prime Day?

Trading Amazon around the holiday quarter and Prime Day means planning an AMZNX or AMZNUSDT position around Amazon's known retail dates: Prime Day, the October sale, Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, Christmas, and the February report on the season. You set your size and your exits before each date, because US market holidays can limit what the perpetual accepts.

The season runs from October to early February. Amazon's fourth quarter covers October to December, so it holds the October sale, Black Friday and Christmas, and Amazon reports it in early February. Prime Day itself is a summer sale, and in 2026 it ran from June 23 to June 26 (source: Amazon, Prime Day 2026 dates). Amazon's third-quarter 2026 report has no posted date yet, and in each of the past six years that report came in the last week of October (source: Amazon investor events).

Amazon has set its October sale, Prime Big Deal Days, for October 6 and 7, 2026 (source: Amazon, Prime Big Deal Days 2026). Nasdaq closes on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, and it closes at 1PM Eastern time on the day after Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve (source: Nasdaq holiday schedule).

On those closed days, and outside regular weekday hours, BloFin may limit stock futures such as the AMZNUSDT Perpetual to reduce-only orders (source: BloFin stock futures trading update). Such an order can only shrink an open position or close it (source: BloFin, What is Reduce Only in Futures Trading?).

Say you open an AMZNX position in early October. By the end of December, it will have passed through two sales, two market holidays and two early closes, and each one changes what you can do and when. The forces that move the share on normal days still apply, as BloFin's guide to what moves Amazon's stock price explains.

How much of Amazon's year the holiday quarter carries

Amazon's holiday quarter, October to December, brought in 29.8% of its 2025 net sales: $213.4 billion out of $716.9 billion (source: Amazon Q4 2025 results). The same quarter also made $25.0 billion of 2025's $80.0 billion in operating income, which is the profit from running the business.

The pattern has held for four years, with the fourth quarter's share of the year between 29.0% and 29.8% from 2022 to 2025 (source: Amazon Q4 2025 results) (source: Amazon Q4 2023 results).

An even year would give each quarter 25%, so the holiday quarter carries almost five points more than an average one. Put simply, nearly $3 of every $10 that Amazon took in during 2025 came between October and December. Profit follows the same shape: the fourth quarter of 2024 made $21.2 billion of that year's $68.6 billion in operating income, or 30.9% (source: Amazon Q4 2025 results).

The weight falls mostly on the stores. North America, Amazon's segment for its North American stores, sold $127.1 billion in the last quarter of 2025. That was also 29.8% of its $426.3 billion for the year (source: Amazon Q4 2025 results). Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud business, sold $35.6 billion in the fourth quarter, 27.7% of its $128.7 billion for 2025 (source: Amazon Q4 2025 results). That is a smaller share of its year than the stores' 29.8%. BloFin's guide to Amazon's business segments shows how the stores and the cloud earn their money.

For a trader, this is why the season matters. A weak November lands in the largest quarter of the year, but you only see the full result when Amazon reports it in February.

Amazon's holiday-quarter guidance and the February report

Amazon forecasts its holiday quarter in late October and reports it in early February, together with a forecast for January to March. From 2022 to 2025, holiday sales beat the top of the October range three times, yet the share fell the next day in three of those four Februarys.

Guidance is the company's own range for the next quarter's sales and operating income. In October 2022, Amazon guided holiday sales of $140.0 billion to $148.0 billion, with operating income anywhere from zero to $4.0 billion (source: Amazon Q3 2022 results). A year later the sales range was $160.0 billion to $167.0 billion (source: Amazon Q3 2023 results). For 2024 it rose to $181.5 billion to $188.5 billion (source: Amazon Q3 2024 results). For 2025 it was $206.0 billion to $213.0 billion (source: Amazon Q3 2025 results). Each February, Amazon reported a result against that range, and the share closed the next day well away from where it had been (source: Amazon Q4 2025 results) (source: Amazon Q4 2023 results) (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history).

The holiday result alone does not explain those moves, because the February release also carries the outlook for the new year. In February 2025, Amazon guided first-quarter sales of $151.0 billion to $155.5 billion (source: Amazon Q4 2024 results). Analysts had expected $158 billion, and the share fell more than 3% in early trading (source: Yahoo Finance, February 7, 2025). In February 2026, online store sales of $83 billion beat estimates. Even so, profit missed Wall Street's expectations, and a plan to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures in 2026 came in well ahead of what analysts expected (source: GeekWire, February 5, 2026).

BloFin's guide to Amazon earnings reports goes through the release line by line. The report lands after Nasdaq's 4PM close, which is 9PM Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) in February. So the first reaction comes in Nasdaq's after-hours session, which runs until 8PM Eastern time (source: Nasdaq holiday schedule). By then BloFin's stock futures are outside their regular hours, so on the AMZNUSDT Perpetual you may be able only to cut or close a position (source: BloFin stock futures trading update).

Say you plan to hold a 5x AMZNUSDT long into the February 2027 report. An opening fall like the one on February 6, 2026, when Amazon opened 8.98% below its previous close, would take about 45% of your margin at 5x (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history).

Prime Day and the Amazon share price

Prime Day, Amazon's summer sale for Prime members, has not pushed the share in one direction. Across the six Prime Days from 2021 to 2026, Amazon's share rose over three and fell over three, by −2.49% to +2.89% from the close before the sale to its last day's close (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history).

The moves stayed small whichever month the sale fell in, June or July (source: Amazon, Prime Day 2026 dates) (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history) (source: Amazon, the history of Prime Day). Prices before mid-2022 are adjusted for that year's split, which BloFin's guide to Amazon stock splits covers.

Adobe, which tracks US online stores as a group, counted $26.4 billion of US online spending from June 23 to 26, 2026, up 9.3% on the year (source: Digital Commerce 360, citing Adobe Analytics). That figure covers every store, so it measures demand. Amazon's results for the quarter that held Prime Day 2026 gave no separate Prime Day sales figure (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results).

A flat week can still hide a wide range. On BloFin, AMZNX traded between 225.46 and 242.61 USDT during Prime Day 2026, a spread of more than 7%. Even so, Amazon's share closed the sale's last day $0.10 below its close the day before the sale began (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history). The AMZNUSDT Perpetual covered almost the same range, from 225.52 to 242.53 USDT.

Say you bought 10 AMZNX at 231.02 USDT when the sale opened at 7AM UTC on June 23, 2026, for about 2,310 USDT. At the low, late on June 25 US time, the tokens were worth about 2,255 USDT, and when the sale ended they were worth about 2,329 USDT. Holding through the week paid a little, but only after a 2.4% dip that a tight stop would have sold.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday: The holiday sales numbers traders watch

The first hard numbers on the holiday season come from outside Amazon. Adobe counted $11.8 billion of US online spending on Black Friday 2025 and $14.3 billion on Cyber Monday, within $44.2 billion over the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday (source: Adobe, Cyber Monday 2025). Amazon itself gives no dollar figure until February.

Adobe published those totals on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, the day after Cyber Monday (source: Adobe, Cyber Monday 2025). Its count for the whole season followed in January: $257.8 billion spent online from November 1 to December 31, 2025, up 6.8% on the year (source: Adobe, 2025 holiday season). These numbers cover the whole market, so they tell you how shoppers behaved, while Amazon's slice of that spending stays unknown until February.

Amazon describes the same weekend in words. Its results for the fourth quarter of 2023 called that year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday event record-breaking (source: Amazon Q4 2023 results). Its results for 2024 said the same of that year's Black Friday Week and Cyber Monday, and neither gave a sales total (source: Amazon Q4 2024 results).

The share itself has moved little across the long weekend. In each of the last six years, Amazon's close on Cyber Monday landed within 2.5% of its close on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history).

The widest move in those six weekends was 2.42%, in 2024. That is small for a share whose February report moved it by 4% or more in each of the last four years. A strong Cyber Monday is a clue about the season, while Amazon's own number arrives only with the February report.

Thanksgiving and Christmas closures on AMZNX and the AMZNUSDT Perpetual

On Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, Nasdaq is closed, and on the day after Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve it closes at 1PM Eastern time. BloFin may limit the AMZNUSDT Perpetual to reduce-only orders on those days, while AMZNX traded in every hour of the 2025 Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks.

US standard time starts on November 1, 2026, so BloFin's regular hours for stock futures run from 2.30PM to 9PM UTC through the holiday season, with early closes at 6PM UTC on November 27 and December 24 (source: BloFin stock futures trading update).

AMZNX is one of the xStocks, a family of tokenized shares, and it follows its own rule. BloFin's risk disclosure for xStocks says their token markets run 24 hours a day, on weekdays only (source: BloFin xStocks risk disclosure). The issuer creates and redeems tokens only on US business days (source: xStocks FAQ). Even so, BloFin's AMZNX/USDT market traded in every hour from Nasdaq's close on November 26, 2025 to its reopening on November 28. It also traded in every hour from the Christmas Eve early close to December 26. AMZNX and the AMZNUSDT Perpetual also traded in every hour of the six holiday breaks from Presidents' Day to Labor Day 2026.

Trading was thin. Over Thanksgiving 2025, AMZNX traded about 168 tokens an hour, and about 67 an hour over the weekend after Black Friday. In the whole hours of Nasdaq's regular sessions from November 17 to December 5, 2025, leaving out Black Friday, the figure was about 1,750 an hour. BloFin's guide to the order book explains why fewer orders mean wider gaps between prices.

One change may come to the calendar in December 2026. Nasdaq expects to begin trading 23 hours a day on Sunday, December 6, once the US price feed is ready and any SEC rule changes are in place (source: Nasdaq Global Trading Hours FAQ). Thanksgiving falls under the current hours, while Christmas would come after the switch.

Say you held 10 AMZNX through Thanksgiving 2025. At Nasdaq's close on Wednesday, November 26, the token stood at 229.12 USDT, and at 9AM Eastern time on Friday it stood at 231.07, about 19.5 USDT higher on your holding. Nasdaq then opened Amazon at $231.24 (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history). By 9AM Eastern time, the token had already covered 94% of the move. Before trading AMZNX/USDT across a holiday, check the spot fee for your account tier in the BloFin fee schedule.

Funding on AMZNUSDT over long holiday breaks

A long holiday break on the AMZNUSDT Perpetual means more funding payments at a time when BloFin may let you only shrink or close a position. Each four-day holiday break in 2026, from Presidents' Day to Labor Day, spanned 11 funding settlements, against 8 on a normal weekend and 2 on a weeknight (source: BloFin AMZNUSDT funding history).

Funding is a payment that passes between the long and short holders of a perpetual contract, and its rate is set to keep the contract's price close to the price it tracks. On AMZNUSDT it is settled at 12AM, 8AM and 4PM Hong Kong time, which is 4PM, 12AM and 8AM UTC (source: BloFin AMZNUSDT contract details). BloFin's guide to crypto funding rates sets out which side pays: longs pay shorts when the rate is positive, and shorts pay longs when it is negative.

BloFin's funding record shows what those settlements added up to over each 2026 holiday break (source: BloFin AMZNUSDT funding history).

Four of the six breaks added up to less than 0.08%, but two were larger, and they went in opposite directions. Across the 27 normal weekends from February 20 to September 28, 2026, the median weekend's settlements added up to about 0.035% in one direction or the other (source: BloFin AMZNUSDT funding history). So a quiet holiday costs little more than a weekend.

The 2026 Christmas break is long. BloFin's regular hours end early, at 6PM UTC on Thursday, December 24, and the next regular session opens at 2.30PM UTC on Monday, December 28. A perpetual held across it passes 11 settlements, from December 25 at 12AM UTC to December 28 at 8AM UTC.

Say you hold an AMZNUSDT long worth 5,000 USDT through that break. At a sum like Presidents' Day's +0.3295%, you would pay about 16.48 USDT, and at one like Good Friday's −0.4652%, you would receive about 23.26 USDT. Funding tells you what holding costs, while the price move across the break matters far more.

How to size and protect a position through the holiday season

Size an AMZNUSDT position for the February report and for the holidays when BloFin may take only reduce-only orders, and plan any new position for a regular session. For AMZNX, use limit orders in thin holiday hours, and remember that the token keeps trading, and your stop keeps watching it, while Nasdaq is closed.

On the perpetual, leverage decides how much of a holiday or February move reaches your margin. AMZNUSDT allows anywhere from 1x to 20x (source: BloFin AMZNUSDT contract details). BloFin's guide to trading Amazon with leverage shows how the maintenance margin sets your liquidation price. At 20x, an opening fall as large as February 2026's 8.98% would be more than your whole margin, and BloFin's guide to leverage and liquidation covers what happens to the position then.

Timing matters as much as size. If you want to add to a perpetual position before Thanksgiving or Christmas, do it in the regular session before the closure. A new position may have to wait until 2.30PM UTC on the next trading day. Taking risk off stays possible through the break, because a reduce-only order can still shrink or close a position.

On AMZNX, a limit order lets you name the highest price you will pay or the lowest you will sell at, which matters when a holiday order book is thin. A stop order on the AMZNX/USDT pair follows the pair's price on BloFin, which keeps moving on a holiday, so a stop can fire before Nasdaq has reopened. BloFin's stop-loss guide compares the stop types you can use.

If you would rather follow another trader, AMZNUSDT can be copied through BloFin's futures copy trading, which copy trading explained covers. A copied position still passes through the same holidays and funding settlements.

BloFin's guide to whether tokenized Amazon is safe describes how each AMZNX token is backed. Whether to hold AMZNX or the AMZN perpetual over the holidays turns on leverage, funding and what each market accepts while Nasdaq is shut.

Say you hold 10 AMZNX and a small AMZNUSDT long going into Christmas week. You could close the perpetual on December 23 or in the short session on December 24 and keep the tokens. If you want an exit over the break, set a limit sell on them. Either way, check both positions again before 2.30PM UTC on December 28.

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

Does Amazon stock usually rise in the fourth quarter?

Amazon stock rose in five of the last six fourth quarters, measured from the last close of September to the last close of December. The gains were 3.4% in 2020, 1.5% in 2021, 19.5% in 2023, 17.7% in 2024 and 5.1% in 2025, while 2022's quarter fell 25.7%, from $113.00 to $84.00 (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history). Six years is a short record, and 2022 shows that a weak market can outweigh the holiday season. The pattern describes the past and says nothing certain about the next quarter.

Which quarter does Prime Day count in?

Prime Day counts in the quarter it falls in, which changes from year to year. It ran in June in 2021, inside Amazon's second quarter, and in July from 2022 to 2025, inside the third (source: Amazon, the history of Prime Day). In 2026 it moved back to June (source: Amazon, Prime Day 2026 dates). With the 2026 event in June, Amazon said third-quarter 2026 sales growth would be nearly 400 basis points, or 4 percentage points, higher if Prime Day were left out of both years (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results).

What time does Prime Big Deal Days start?

Prime Big Deal Days starts at 12.01AM Pacific time on October 6, 2026, which is 7.01AM UTC, and its deals run for 48 hours (source: Amazon, Prime Big Deal Days 2026). Nasdaq's regular session opens at 9.30AM Eastern time on October 6, about six and a half hours after the deals go live (source: Nasdaq holiday schedule). After the 2024 event, Amazon reported record sales, a record number of items sold and a record number of Prime members taking part, with no sales total (source: Amazon Q3 2024 results).

Does Amazon stock trade less on Black Friday?

Usually, yes, because Nasdaq closes at 1PM Eastern time that day. In five of the six years from 2020 to 2025, fewer Amazon shares changed hands on Black Friday than on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. On November 28, 2025 the count was 20.3 million shares, about half of Wednesday's 38.5 million (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history). The exception was 2021, when 59.8 million shares traded on Black Friday against 46.6 million on the Wednesday.

How has Amazon stock moved after Christmas?

Amazon's first open after Christmas has landed close to its last close before it. From 2020 to 2025, the difference ranged from a rise of 0.67% in 2020 to a fall of 0.33% in 2022, and four of the six opens were within 0.25% (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history). The calm did not always carry into the new year: the share closed 2025 at $230.82 on December 31, then traded as low as $224.70 on January 2, 2026.

Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include Amazon's results releases for the third quarters of 2022 to 2025, the fourth quarters of 2023 to 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, Amazon's investor events page and its Prime Day and Prime Big Deal Days announcements, Nasdaq's holiday schedule, AMZN historical data and Global Trading Hours FAQ, BloFin's stock futures trading update, reduce-only guide, xStocks risk disclosure, AMZNUSDT contract details and funding history, BloFin's hourly AMZNX/USDT and AMZNUSDT prices, the xStocks FAQ, Adobe's Cyber Monday 2025 and 2025 holiday season reports, Adobe's Prime Day 2026 figures as reported by Digital Commerce 360, Yahoo Finance and GeekWire, current as of September 28, 2026.

Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold Amazon in any form. A strong holiday season does not guarantee a rising share, because in each of the last four years Amazon's February report moved it by 4% or more, up or down. On US market holidays and early-close days BloFin may accept only orders that reduce an AMZNUSDT position. Funding keeps settling every eight hours through the break, and a leveraged position can be liquidated by the move at the next open. AMZNX trades thinly on holidays, so an order can fill far from the last price. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.