Amazon Jumped Today -- Is the Stock a Buy Right Now?

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) stock saw significant gains Tuesday. The company's share price closed out the session up 3.6% and had been up as much as 5.7% earlier in the session. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.5% and 2.7%, respectively.

The stock market continued to its run of high volatility in today's trading, but investors got a welcome day of rebound momentum on the heels of yesterday's big sell-off. Stocks saw a strong run of bullish trading following a report from Bloomberg today that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said that he expected de-escalation on the trade war between the U.S. and China.

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The news helped effectively erase yesterday's sell-off, which was driven by President Donald Trump ramping up his criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and stating that the central banking authority should immediately cut interest rates in order to support U.S. economic growth. Despite today's jump, Amazon stock is down 21% in 2025 and 28.5% from its high.

Is Amazon stock a buy right now?

Amazon has leading positions in e-commerce and cloud infrastructure services, and the stock would look like a steal trading at 27.5 times this year's expected earnings if it weren't for high levels of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty on the horizon. The tech giant's online retail business will likely face some significant headwinds in the face of the ongoing trade war, and a weaker economic growth outlook overall can also be expected to tamp down customer spending at Amazon Web Services (AWS).

For investors willing to embrace the likelihood that markets will continue to be highly volatile in the near term, I think Amazon still has the potential to be a big winner over the long haul. AWS has the company positioned to be a key facilitator of growth for artificial intelligence (AI) services, and the e-commerce business is still in the early stages of benefiting from potentially transformative automation trends. But with market dynamics shifting at a rapid pace these days, investors interested in building a position may want to dollar-cost average into the stock rather than buying all at once.

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John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.