Amazon stock closed at exactly $1,500 per share today, hitting that milestone for the first time as the tech giant continues to ascend the list of the world’s most valuable companies.
Amazon has become a financial powerhouse in recent years, evolving into a moneymaking machine that employs more than 566,000 people worldwide and disrupts new industries constantly. Amazon stock didn’t hit $500 per share until 2015, 14 years after it went public. Two years later, Amazon hit the $1,000 milestone, and it took less than a year to get up to $1,500.
Amazon’s surging stock helped the tech giant pass its local rival Microsoft in market cap for the first time last week to become the third most valuable public company in the U.S. by that measure. Today, Amazon’s market cap is $726.1 billion versus $724.2 billion for Microsoft.
Amazon is now behind only Google ($782.79 billion) and Apple ($890.5 billion) in market cap. Thanks to Amazon’s rising value its CEO Jeff Bezos has become the world’s richest person.
In just the last month, Amazon waded deeper into healthcare and added Whole Foods items to its rapid delivery service and rewards credit cards. Amazon is reportedly getting ready to increase its logistics operations even further by rolling out a new delivery service that would compete with traditional carriers like FedEx and UPS.
Amazon also this month confirmed that it is cutting hundreds of staffers, or “small reductions in a couple of places” as the company describes it. A source told GeekWire that about 500 positions were affected, though those impacted were offered other positions inside the company. A report from Yahoo Finance asserts that the cutbacks are related to an ongoing initiative to merge its grocery delivery service AmazonFresh with its rapid delivery unit Prime Now.
This all comes as Amazon closes in on selecting a site for its second North American headquarters.
Amazon is coming off what it called its best holiday shopping period ever, resulting in a robust earnings report earlier this month. It posted $60.5 billion in net sales during the fourth quarter of 2017, resulting in profits of $1.9 billion.
