Amazon had a big week that could shape where its stagnant stock goes next

Amazon has released a lot of news this week, from advances in its cloud business to questions about its partnership with the U.S. Postal Service, leaving investors with a lot to digest. The flurry of headlines comes at the end of a difficult year. Shares of the e-commerce and cloud giant are up 4.6% compared to the broader S&P 500's 16.4% and well behind all Magnificent Seven peers. Although the company is showing renewed growth in AWS and improvements in the dominant Prime e-commerce ecosystem, investors are concerned that the company is losing ground in the AI race and could face margin pressure from tariffs. We think the company has turned the corner. “A better year lies ahead as management continues to prove its AI strategy and expand operating margins,” Jeff Marks, Club's portfolio manager, wrote in a report Thursday, noting stocks poised for a rebound in 2026. Here's how this week's news fits that investment thesis: Upbeat updates on cloud activity News: During Amazon's annual re:Invent 2025 conference in Las Vegas, Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman unveiled Trainium3. It's the latest version of the company's in-house custom chip. It offers four times the computing performance, energy efficiency and memory bandwidth of previous generations. AWS also announced that it is working on Trainium4. The company also introduced a number of cloud products, including advanced AI-powered platforms and agents that help customers automate workloads. Our take: We're pleased to hear that AWS continues to innovate its chip offerings to diversify its reliance on Nvidia, the industry leader in graphics processing units (GPUs). But much of the focus for investors is on bringing data center capacity online. Amazon needs to buy more Nvidia chips to keep up with AI. Additionally, Jim Cramer interviewed AWS CEO Matt Garman on "Mad Money" earlier this week, and he was optimistic about the future growth of the cloud business. USPS ties tested News: Amazon may cut ties with USPS when its contract expires in October 2026, according to a report by the Washington Post. Amazon likely considered the move because it owns Amazon Logistics, a shadow mail service that processes billions of packages each year. By eliminating the intermediary role of USPS, Amazon will have complete financial and operational control. Amazon denied the report. Our takeaway: The e-commerce and cloud giant has invested billions of dollars over the years to build a vast logistics network that now delivers more packages in the U.S. than UPS and FedEx. It still uses USPS for delivery of small, low-weight packages, especially from third-party Amazon sellers. USPS is also useful for "last mile delivery" in hard-to-serve geographic areas. If the company eliminates the postal service as an intermediary, it can further reduce the cost of service and thus increase margins. Possible IPO payday news: Anthropic, the AI startup behind the Claude chatbot, is reportedly in talks to launch one of the biggest IPOs ever in early 2026, according to the Financial Times. Anthropic has no immediate plans to go public and is instead "keeping our options open," Sasha de Marigny, Anthropic's chief communications officer, said at an Axios event in New York City on Thursday. Our take: An Anthropic IPO could be a big payday for Amazon, which has invested nearly $8 billion in Anthropic. As part of this investment, Anthropic has partnered with AWS as its primary cloud provider and training partner to run massive AI training and inference workloads. An anthropic IPO would elevate the AI startup, thereby increasing AWS's dominance as a best-in-class cloud provider. Ultra-fast grocery delivery News: Amazon says it's testing an ultra-fast delivery service that could deliver fresh groceries, everyday essentials and popular items in as little as 30 minutes, starting in Seattle and Philadelphia. Amazon Prime members receive a discounted delivery fee starting at $3.99 per order, while for non-Prime customers the fee is $13.99. Club pickup: Amazon has continued to expand into online grocery and essentials as customers increasingly choose to shop from the online retailer for daily essentials. While its retail business comes with low margins, Amazon continues to operate with the goal of reducing the cost of service, which will help increase margins over time. Amazon ranks second as the largest retailer in the US, right behind Walmart, in terms of online grocery sales in the US. As Amazon continues to make progress in the industry, it should be able to capitalize on this significant growth opportunity, particularly by leveraging advanced AI capabilities for optimal inventory placement and demand forecasting. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long AMZN, NVDA. See here for a full list of stocks.) When you subscribe to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trading alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable foundation's portfolio. If Jim talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trading alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTMENT CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY, TOGETHER WITH THE DISCLAIMERS. NO CIVIL OBLIGATIONS OR DUTIES EXIST OR SHALL BE RESULTING FROM YOUR RECEIVING ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTMENT CLUB. 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