Amazon and Intel stocks tumble after earnings. Strong AI growth wasn’t enough
Amazon’s cloud sales jumped 39% and Intel’s data-center revenue rose 78%, yet both stocks sold off sharply. Investors are questioning the cost and sustainability of growth. Here are the important price levels to watch as Friday’s trading approaches.
Amazon (AMZN) and Intel (INTC) shares fell sharply after their October 29 earnings releases, despite impressive growth in their cloud and data-center businesses. Amazon’s heavy AI investment is consuming free cash flow, while Intel’s weak outlook raises questions about its recovery. For traders, the next test is whether the initial after-hours selling attracts lasting buying interest.
As of 4:50 p.m. New York time on Thursday, October 29, 2026, before the scheduled 5 p.m. earnings calls:
Amazon: Approximately $228.62, down 6.4% from its final pre-release five-minute reference near $244.23.
Intel: Approximately $76.83, down 16.6% from its corresponding reference near $92.08.
Nasdaq futures: Down approximately 1.23% over the comparable initial reaction window.
These are after-hours observations, not regular-session closing prices or live quotations.
Amazon: AWS is booming, but investors want to see the cash
Amazon delivered a quarter with several genuinely impressive numbers.
According to its official Q3 earnings announcement , revenue increased 12% to approximately $201.94 billion, narrowly missing Wall Street expectations near $202.2 billion.
Amazon Web Services was a standout. Revenue reached approximately $46 billion, up 39.3% from a year earlier, marking its fastest growth in nearly five years.
Operating income rose to $28.1 billion, producing a record operating margin of 13.9%.
Those figures do not describe a business struggling to generate growth or operating profits.
So why did the shares fall?
The answer appears to lie in what that growth costs, how much cash it consumes and whether investors believe future returns will justify today’s investment.
Amazon reported negative free cash flow of $42.4 billion over the trailing 12 months, compared with positive free cash flow of $14.8 billion in the comparable period a year earlier.
That is a deterioration of $57.2 billion.
Importantly, this does not mean Amazon’s operations stopped generating cash. Trailing 12-month operating cash flow actually increased 29% to $168.3 billion. The difference is largely associated with the enormous investment required to build infrastructure, especially for AI.
Management maintained its outlook for approximately $220 billion in 2026 cash capital expenditures.
Meanwhile, fourth-quarter revenue guidance of $240 billion to $247 billion puts the midpoint at $243.5 billion, modestly below analyst expectations near $244.5 billion.
Reported third-quarter earnings of $1.89 per share also missed estimates around $1.97. However, the year-earlier EPS comparison was inflated by $9.5 billion in pretax gains from Amazon’s Anthropic investments. It would therefore be misleading to interpret the year-over-year headline EPS movement as evidence of comparable weakness in its underlying operations.
The emerging question is not whether Amazon can grow its AI business. The latest results demonstrate substantial demand.
The more difficult question is how much shareholders ultimately receive from that growth after funding the infrastructure needed to deliver it.
That is a different standard from simply reporting rapid cloud revenue expansion.
Amazon stock: The first rebound has already recovered substantial ground
The initial price reaction was severe.
Amazon fell from its pre-release five-minute reference near $244.23 to an after-hours low around $214.01, a decline of approximately 12.4%.
Buyers then returned, lifting the shares substantially off that low.
By the 4:50 p.m. ET data cutoff, Amazon was trading around $228.62, still approximately 6.4% below the reference.
That recovery is worth watching, but it is not yet sufficient evidence that the selling has ended.
Amazon share-price levels to watch
$224.90-$229.10: The first stabilization test
This is the immediate area where traders can assess whether the rebound is developing a foundation.
Holding this region on subsequent pullbacks would improve the short-term recovery case. Repeated failures to defend it would leave the stock vulnerable to renewed pressure.
$232.30-$234.90: The first meaningful recovery hurdle
If buyers push beyond the initial stabilization zone, this is the next area where the strength of the rebound can be evaluated.
A brief price spike into the region is less meaningful than a sustained move above it, followed by evidence that buyers can defend the reclaimed prices.
$239.70-$244.25: The higher recovery region
This area extends toward Amazon’s pre-earnings price reference.
Reaching it would represent a much more substantial recovery from the earnings shock. It would not, by itself, resolve concerns about AI spending or free cash flow.
$219.70, followed by $213-$214: Downside areas
A renewed breakdown would put the first lower observation level near $219.70 into focus.
Below that, the market would be approaching the initial earnings low. Whether buyers defend that low, or sellers force prices through it, could help determine the next phase.
Intel: Strong data-center growth meets a much weaker forecast
Intel’s selloff was considerably more severe, despite an earnings report that contained encouraging signs of operational improvement.
Its official third-quarter results showed revenue increasing 21% to approximately $16.5 billion.
Non-GAAP earnings reached $0.52 per share, ahead of analyst expectations near $0.40. GAAP diluted EPS was $0.60.
Intel’s Data Center and AI business increased revenue 78% to $7.3 billion.
GAAP gross margin also improved to 43%, compared with 38.2% a year earlier.
Yet the market reaction demonstrates the danger of looking at the quarter in isolation.
Intel expects fourth-quarter revenue between $15 billion and $16 billion. The midpoint of $15.5 billion is approximately 9.2% below the $17.07 billion consensus cited by Reuters.
The company also forecasts fourth-quarter non-GAAP EPS of $0.25, substantially below expectations around $0.43.
That is a significant gap in forward expectations, especially for a company whose stock had already experienced a powerful rally during 2026.
The personal-computer business presents another challenge. Revenue from Intel’s Client Computing and Physical AI group declined 5% to $8.1 billion, and management expects weakness in the PC market to persist at least through the first half of 2027.
There is also an important manufacturing issue.
Reuters reports that an October disruption at Intel’s Kiryat Gat production facility in Israel is expected to reduce revenue by approximately $300 million in the fourth quarter and a similar amount in the first quarter of 2027.
That adds a specific near-term supply constraint to the broader demand and execution challenges.
For Intel shareholders, the positive development is that data-center demand and operating performance have improved significantly.
The negative is that those improvements are not currently sufficient to prevent a sharp downgrade in the near-term outlook.
Intel stock: A rebound doesn’t necessarily mean the bottom is in
Intel’s immediate after-hours response was dramatic.
From approximately $92.08 before the announcement, the shares fell to $71.20, a decline of roughly 22.7%.
A rebound subsequently lifted the stock as high as $79.16.
But the recovery struggled to hold, with the latest completed five-minute bar at the supplied 4:50 p.m. cutoff closing near $76.83.
That leaves Intel approximately 16.6% below its pre-earnings reference.
The important distinction now is between a temporary rebound following aggressive selling and a more convincing recovery in which buyers begin to regain control.
Intel share-price levels to watch
$77.15-$80.00: The first recovery decision area
This is the immediate region traders should monitor.
A sustained reclaim would suggest that buyers are becoming more successful in absorbing the initial selling pressure.
Repeated failures beneath the area, particularly if accompanied by lower rebound highs, would favor continued caution.
$84.60-$86.20: The more significant recovery test
Reaching this region would represent meaningful progress beyond the first rebound.
It is also important because it includes the lower boundary of the supplied pre-event options-implied price range.
An implied range reflects options pricing expectations, not a guaranteed limit on how far a stock can move.
$71.20-$72.55: The initial selloff-low region
A return toward this area could become particularly informative.
If selling slows and buyers establish a higher low, the market may be starting to absorb the earnings disappointment.
A sustained breakdown would weaken that interpretation.
$69.70-$70.00: The next lower observation area
If the initial low fails decisively, this becomes the next downside area to monitor.
It is not a prediction that Intel must reach $70.
Why the Nasdaq reaction matters too
One of the most useful observations is that Amazon and Intel weakened considerably more than the technology benchmark during the initial reaction.
Nasdaq futures declined approximately 1.23% over the comparable observation window.
Amazon underperformed that move by about 5.16 percentage points, while Intel underperformed by roughly 15.33 percentage points.
This matters because it helps distinguish a broad market decline from selling pressure concentrated in individual companies.
The relative weakness suggests that stock-specific earnings information was an important part of the market’s repricing. It does not establish the precise contribution of every headline or the direction of causation.
There is also a broader context to this earnings week.
In investingLive’s earlier Amazon and Intel earnings preview , the central question was whether AI-driven growth could justify the spending and support future cash flow.
That question now looks particularly relevant.
The selling also follows Alphabet’s sharp earnings reaction , where strong cloud growth was overshadowed by concerns surrounding search performance and heavy investment.
However, it would be premature to conclude that investors have turned against AI investment universally.
Different companies have different cash-generation profiles, demand trends and expectations already reflected in their valuations.
What these results suggest is that the market is becoming more demanding about the financial returns on AI investment, not necessarily questioning whether demand for AI infrastructure exists.
Friday, October 30: What would change the picture?
The next regular trading session could provide a more useful test of how durable the initial repricing becomes.
A constructive recovery
Amazon reclaims its first recovery zone and makes progress toward $232.30-$234.90, while Intel can hold above $77.15-$80.00 and build higher lows.
Such behavior would suggest that at least part of the initial selling pressure is being absorbed.
Continued selling pressure
Amazon fails to defend the $224.90-$229.10 region and moves toward $219.70, while Intel repeatedly fails below $80 and returns toward $71.20-$72.55.
That would suggest the early rebounds were insufficient to establish meaningful stabilization.
No clear resolution
Both stocks move erratically within their large after-hours ranges, with neither buyers nor sellers gaining convincing control.
In that case, waiting for better price confirmation may be more useful than trying to predict the next move from an isolated price spike.
The first 30-60 minutes of Friday’s regular session deserve attention, particularly in relation to Nasdaq futures and the price zones above. However, the opening period can also produce false breaks and substantial volatility.
The scheduled company conference calls may materially change expectations before that session begins.
The lesson from Amazon and Intel earnings
There is a useful distinction here for traders and investors.
Amazon has demonstrated rapid cloud growth and record operating profitability, but its heavy spending is putting pressure on free cash flow.
Intel has demonstrated substantial improvement in data-center demand and margins, but the next-quarter outlook is considerably weaker than investors expected.
Both developments can be true at the same time.
For longer-term investors, the important questions concern sustainable growth, capital efficiency, execution and valuation.
For shorter-term traders, the next opportunity to learn something comes from how prices behave after the initial earnings shock.
Strong results can still disappoint a market with even stronger expectations. And sometimes, the reaction to the reaction tells us more than the first move itself.
Market observations reflect the October 29, 2026, after-hours snapshot through 4:50 p.m. ET. Extended-hours trading can be volatile and less liquid. The price levels discussed are conditional observation areas, not trade recommendations. Educational market analysis only. Trade at your own risk.
This article was written by Itai Levitan at investinglive.com.
