Why Amazon stock could have nearly 50% upside in 2026

Amazon’s (AMZN) stock has hardly had a prime performance in 2025.

Shares of the e-commerce and cloud giant are only up 6% year to date, badly lagging the 18% advance for the S&P 500 (^GSPC). Experts cite slowing sales growth in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) business and mixed sentiment on the company’s ability to monetize artificial intelligence as the drivers of the “mixed” sentiment.

Amazon didn’t do much to bolster sentiment in October, when the company announced its largest-ever round of layoffs in its history, eliminating 14,000 corporate roles.

The stock is likely to close out the year with the unenviable award for worst-performing “Magnificent Seven” member.

For perspective, the top performer of the Magnificent Seven, Alphabet (GOOG), has surged 66% this year on the back of optimism for its new Gemini 3 model.

But Wall Street has stuck with Amazon, with some even putting it on their “top picks” lists for 2026.

Evercore ISI tech analyst Mark Mahaney wrote…