For most investors, earnings season is the pinnacle of every quarter. Over a six-week period, the stock market's most-influential businesses lift their proverbial hoods and give investors a look at how they've performed over the prior three-month period. It serves as an excellent barometer of Wall Street's health.
But earnings reports aren't the only way to judge which stocks and trends are firing on all cylinders.
No later than 45 calendar days following the end to a quarter, institutional investors with at least $100 million in assets under management (AUM) are required to file Form 13F with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This filing allows investors to track which stocks, exchange-traded funds, and select options Wall Street's shrewdest money managers bought and sold in the latest quarter.
Image source: Amazon.
However, there's a catch to the above statement: 13Fs aren't limited to individuals. Companies that are investing more than $100 million in AUM are also required to disclose their holdings via 13F. This includes trillion-dollar club member Amazon (AMZN 0.61%), which closed out the June quarter with more than $2.4 billion in AUM.
Amazon is much more than just e-commerce and AWS
Most people are familiar with Amazon because of its world-leading e-commerce platform, which draws billions of unique visitors to its site each month. Though selling goods online is a key driver of revenue, and e-commerce acts as the consumer-facing brand for the company, it's a generally low-margin segment that isn't too important to profitability.
Arguably the biggest puzzle piece that defines Amazon's success is its cloud infrastructure service platform Amazon Web Services (AWS), which accounted for 32% of global cloud infrastructure service spend in the second quarter, per tech-analysis firm Omdia.
Despite representing less than 19% of Amazon's net sales through the first-half of 2025, AWS is responsible for close to 58% of its operating income. The operating margin associated with AWS is light years higher than the operating margin associated with selling goods through an online marketplace. AWS has been growing at a consistent high-teens percentage on a year-over-year basis, with the prospect of growth reaccelerating thanks to the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions into the platform.
But Amazon is more than just online retail sales, AWS, and a company with fast-growing subscription and advertising services. It's also an investor in some of its business partners.
As of June 30, Amazon held stakes in nine publicly traded companies. The largest of these stakes stems from an investment made in electric-vehicle manufacturer Rivian Automotive (RIVN -0.99%) six years ago. Amazon's logistics division also placed an order for 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian. When Rivian officially became a public company in 2021, Amazon began reporting its stake via 13Fs.
While Rivian accounts for 89% of the value of Amazon's investment holdings, it's the newest addition to this $2.43 billion portfolio that's turning heads.
Image source: Getty Images.
Wall Street's quantum computing darling is on Amazon's menu
Although AI has arguably been the hottest thing since sliced bread over the last three years, a strong case can be made that quantum computing stocks are even hotter. Quantum computing relies on quantum mechanics to solve complex problems that traditional computers can't do. It has the potential to be particularly helpful in refining drug development and speeding up the pace by which AI algorithms help systems learn and become more efficient.
Over the trailing-12-month period, as of the closing bell on Oct. 3, we've witnessed gains in quantum computing stocks of:
- IonQ (IONQ 7.90%): 696%
- Rigetti Computing: 5,130%
- D-Wave Quantum: 3,460%
- Quantum Computing: 3,630%
During the second quarter, Amazon's 13F shows the only purchase it made was 854,207 shares of IonQ, which at the time had a market value of $36.7 million. If Amazon hasn't sold a share, this same position would be worth $62.6 million, as of Oct. 3.
Similar to other trillion-dollar club investors, such as Nvidia and Alphabet, the investment positions Amazon takes tend to be in its business partners. IonQ certainly fits the bill.
Although it's a nascent operating model when compared to Amazon's online marketplace, AWS, Prime subscriptions, and advertising, Amazon does have a quantum cloud-computing service known as Braket (which runs on AWS). This on-demand platform allows clients access to quantum computers to run simulations and/or execute algorithms. IonQ's trapped-ion quantum computers are being used by Braket, which is the connection Amazon has to Wall Street's quantum computing darling.
While some industry pundits expect sky-high growth from quantum computing stocks, with Boston Consulting Group projecting $450 billion to $850 billion in economic value created by this technology come 2040, there's quite a bit of frothiness built into the valuation of Amazon's newest investment.
On one hand, sales growth forecasts for IonQ are eyebrow-raising, with revenue projected to increase 112% this year from the prior-year period. On the other hand, IonQ is starting from a low basis. Even with sales forecast to quadruple from 2024 to 2026, its forward-year price-to-sales (P/S) ratio is an absurd 138!
To add fuel to the fire, IonQ isn't particularly close to being profitable. In fact, its operating loss more than doubled to $236.3 million through the first-half of 2025 compared to the comparable period last year. Higher research and development costs are likely to keep IonQ in the red for many years to come.
Lastly, every game-changing technological advancement for more than 30 years has needed time to mature and endured an early stage bubble-bursting event. Investors (and businesses) consistently overestimate the early innings adoption rate and/or utility of new technologies -- and there's a very high probability quantum computing isn't the exception to this unwritten rule.
