amazoncom inc showed its first quarterly profit of the year thursday but predicted that holiday sales and profit would come in well lower than analysts expected while cloud growth slowed sending shares south in afterhours trading amazon amzn reported thirdquarter profit of 287 billion or 28 cents a share down from 31 cents a share in the yearago quarter after adjusting for amazon’s 20to1 stock split revenue grew to 1271 billion from 1108 billion in the middle of executives’ forecast for 125 billion to 130 billion but slightly missing analysts’ expectations analysts on average expected earnings of 22 cents a share on sales of 12739 billion according to factset shares dove nearly 20 at times in afterhours trading immediately following the release of the results after closing with a 41 increasedecline at 11096 “there is obviously a lot happening in the macroeconomic environment and we’ll balance our investments to be more streamlined without compromising our key longterm strategic bets” chief executive andy jassy said in a statement “what won’t change is our maniacal focus on the customer experience and we feel confident that we’re ready to deliver a great experience for customers this holiday shopping season” amazon had reported quarterly losses through the first half of the year largely because of a rapid postinitial public offering decline in one of its investments rivian automotive inc rivn but the seattlebased company has also been looking to cut costs after spending wildly during the first two years of the covid19 pandemic to keep up with spiking demand for its online store and amazon web services cloudcomputing products amazon’s stock has suffered as it faces comparisons to the headier days of last year and will do so again in the holiday season when it faces a comparison with a nearly 12 billion profit from its rivian investment which has declined more than 50 from its ipo price and stands at roughly onefifth its peak postipo price in thursday’s report amazon guided for fourthquarter operating profit of breakeven to 4 billion and holiday sales of 140 billion to 148 billion while analysts on average were expecting operating income of 505 billion on revenue of 15509 billion according to factset amazon’s ecommerce operations were boosted in the third quarter by the company’s annual prime day event in july and the company tried to replicate the event in october that analysts saw as less successful and potentially a sign of weakness “we see amazon’s decision to hold two prime day sales in one calendar year as a red flag for weak ecommerce sales consistent with retailers in general holding more sales when their sales are under pressure” da davidson analyst tom forte wrote in a preview of amazon’s report in the third quarter with backtoschool sales and the first prime day event quarterly retail sales in north america hit 7884 billion while overseas revenue totaled 2772 billion analysts on average were expecting 7724 billion and 29 billion respectively according to factset sales in both locations were unprofitable from an operating perspective for the fourth consecutive quarter losing a total of 288 billion amazon’s profit largely comes from the fat margins of its aws cloudcomputing offering but there have been concerns about growth leveling off for cloud after rival microsoft corp msft reported a deceleration earlier this week and guided for a further decline in growth in the fourth quarter amazon reported aws sales of 2054 billion up 356 from the year before and lower than analysts’ average estimate of 212 billion operating income of 54 billion made up for ecommerce losses but handily missed analysts’ average estimate of 637 billion according to factset opinion the cloud boom is coming back to earth and that could be scary for tech stocks amazon’s other highermargin business is advertising which has grown strongly in recent years as companies seeking to sell products on amazon pay the company to list their products higher when consumers search for them on the ecommerce platform amazon reported thirdquarter advertising revenue of 955 billion up from 761 billion a year ago and topping the average analysts estimate of 948 billion amazon stock has declined 335 so far this year as the sp 500 index spx has dropped 196