Key Highlights

  • Amazon climbed on Friday, ranking among the top three gainers in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, closing around $251.52 with other sources showing a slightly larger gain.
  • A report said Amazon is in talks to move about $8 billion worth of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips into a special-purpose vehicle financed with third-party Debt and Lease them back, a move described as supporting its Credit rating.
  • Amazon Web Services announced a price increase for EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML, effective next week, letting customers reserve high-end Nvidia chip clusters for AI Training and running models.
  • The gain came amid a strong day for technology broadly, with Nvidia the Dow's top gainer on a record high and a separate report saying a Broadcom financing syndicate is assembling about $60 billion to fund chips for Anthropic and other AI companies.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) climbed on Friday, ranking among the top three gainers in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as investors digested a report on a creative financing plan for its AI chips and a price increase for its AI cloud rentals. The stock closed around $251.52, with other closing data showing a slightly larger gain. The Dow rose 250.40 points to 51,176.96.

The Leaseback Plan

A report said Amazon is in talks to move about $8 billion worth of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips into a special-purpose vehicle and then lease them back. The vehicle would be financed with third-party debt, and Amazon might keep a small Equity stake.

A Taiwan-based publication said the aim is to support Amazon's credit rating. Amazon and Nvidia declined to comment.

In simple terms, a leaseback lets a company sell or transfer expensive equipment it already uses to another entity, then pay rent to keep using it. That frees up cash and moves some of the cost off the company's own balance sheet. For Amazon, which is spending about $200 billion on capital projects in 2026, any tool that spreads the cost of AI hardware could matter.

AI Computing Just Got Pricier

Amazon Web Services, the company's Cloud Computing unit, also announced a price increase for EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML, effective next week. These let customers reserve clusters of high-end Nvidia chips, from A100s to the newest B300s, for training and running AI models.

Companies building AI tools need huge amounts of processing power, and investors often read price increases for scarce computing time as a sign of strong Demand for the most sought-after chips.

Part of a Broad Tech Rally

Amazon's gain came on a strong day for technology stocks. The trigger was a weak September jobs report: employers added only 29,000 jobs, compared with expectations of about 84,000. That cut the odds of another Federal Reserve rate hike at the October 27-28 meeting to roughly one in five.

Nvidia was the Dow's top gainer after hitting a record high during the session and being named Morgan Stanley's top semiconductor pick. Apple and Microsoft also rose. The Nasdaq-100 notched a record close of 30,807.93.

Other AI financing news also made headlines. A report said a Broadcom financing syndicate is assembling about $60 billion to fund chips for Anthropic and other AI companies. Together, these reports show how the AI build-out is pushing companies to find new ways to pay for enormous hardware bills.

Rates and the Consumer

Amazon also runs the world's largest online store, so the health of the US consumer matters. Average hourly Earnings rose to $37.81 in September, but wage growth over the past year was the slowest since May 2021.

Treasury yields fell after the jobs report but reversed to close higher, with the 10-year near its highest level since 2002.

Watching the Leaseback Terms and AWS Revenue Impact

Investors will look for confirmation of the leaseback plan and its final terms, including how much debt is involved and how much equity Amazon keeps.

The impact of higher AI rental prices on AWS revenue will be a key focus when Amazon next reports earnings. The Fed's October 27-28 meeting and the start of earnings season, with PepsiCo on October 8 and the big banks on October 13 and 14, will also shape sentiment toward big tech.