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The AI investment cycle has introduced an accounting variable that public-market scorecards are only beginning to price correctly.
Amazon reported Q2 2026 net income of $62.6 billion, or $5.75 per share, against a consensus analyst estimate of roughly $1.82, and the stock rose approximately 15% on July 31.
What the headline obscured is that more than 85% of that income, specifically $53.4 billion, came from unrealized gains in equity holdings rather than from cloud compute or retail operations.
How paper gains enter the income statement Both Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and International Financial Reporting Standards require companies to book increases in the market value of stock holdings as net income, even when no shares are sold.
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