Rivian Was Responsible for Amazon’s Loss. The Market Was Ready This Time.

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Amazon.com

lost money in the second quarter of 2022.

Rivian Automotive

was the reason, again.

Rivian

(ticker: RIVN) has tanked

Amazon

(AMZN) earnings before, with the declining value of Amazon’s Rivian shares hitting Amazon results back in the first quarter too. The big first-quarter charge might have even contributed to Amazon stock’s big post-earnings decline back in April.

Amazon owns almost 163 million shares of Rivian, or about 18% of the stock outstanding. Rivian stock dropped from $50.24 at the end of the first quarter to $25.74 at the end of the second, resulting in a $3.9 billion pretax valuation loss on its Rivian holdings—and causing Amazon to report a net loss of $2 billion.

Investors seem to be getting the Rivian accounting impact on the e-commerce giant though. When Amazon recognized a $7.6 billion loss on its Rivian stake in the first quarter. That seemed to surprise investors, as Amazon shares dropped about 14% after those results were released (investors were also disappointed with slowing online sales and higher costs. Not this time. Amazon stock is up about 12% in after-hours trading, shortly after second-quarter results were released.

Excluding Rivian, Amazon reported earnings of 10 cents a share, lower than the 13 cents analyst were projecting. But sales exceeded Street expectations and the company’s own guidance.

Through Wednesday trading, Amazon stock is down about 27%. Rivian shares are off about 67%, while the

S&P 500
and

Dow Jones Industrial Average
are down about 15% and 10%, respectively.

Write to Al Root at [email protected]