As AMZN continues consolidating recently, I’ve been looking for clues for the next move. It makes up almost 4% of the S&P 500 index. AMZN’s moves have significant impacts on the broader market.

Disclaimer: This post is not financial advice and not an endorsement of any stock or trading strategy. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.

I do not hold any positions in AMZN or its leveraged ETFs at the time of writing.

Near a big level

Volume Leaders has a handy feature that identifies trade levels where large trades have occurred multiple times. You can track the instances where price returns to these levels and get a list of these touches each day. AMZN showed up on the list today:

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This listing shows that AMZN has a #1 level at $223.30 that has seen $16.3B in trades since December 19th, 2024. That’s a lot! It signifies that this level is really important to institutional traders and investors.

Let’s start by looking at AMZN over the past quarter:

amzn-quarterly.png

There was a big #6 trade (6th biggest in AMZN’s history) on June 27th right around the #1 level. Ever since that date, the price has been moving sideways.

Let’s zoom in a bit and get just the trading days since June 27th:

amzn-june-27.png

Notice how the #1 and #4 levels have put a cap on the stock’s price since the big #6 trade. In addition, the #36 level at $219.40 has been acting as support. The #36 level might seem insignificant at first glance, but it has $5.81B traded across 121 trades.

My current take is that AMZN is consolidating before making a move. Picking a direction here is difficult, but there are two good spots for setting alerts:

  • The #1 level at $223.30 needs to see at least 1-2 daily closes above it to confirm a breakout.
  • A hard break on volume below $219.40 would be a sign that we’re likely headed lower.

Leveraged ETFs

Various firms offer leveraged ETFs that track AMZN. These ETFs try to amplify the returns of AMZN using some complicated methods that are challenging to explain. 😉

However, these ETFs are often used by traders to capture a quick move in AMZN with bigger returns (and bigger risks). Let’s look at a 2x long AMZN ETF, AMZZ:

amzz.png

AMZZ has a #10 trade very close to the current price and it rejected off the #9 level. This doesn’t tell me too much. Let’s try AMZU, a 1.5x long AMZN ETF:

amzu.png

So now we see that AMZU has a #1 level just below the current price which has been supportive since June 27th. There’s the third biggest trade in AMZU’s history right on the #1 level (look to the left). Institutions move in and out of these ETFs quickly, so there’s no guarantee that these traders are still in the position.

For fun, let’s check an inverse ETF. AMZD is a short AMZN ETF, so it rises when AMZN falls. You might need to think upside down for this one. 😉

amzd.png

AMZD ran down to its #2 level from the #1 level. If AMZD falls below the #2 level, this would be a bullish signal for AMZN.

Full chart

Here’s a big daily chart of AMZN that you can click to enlarge.

amzn-full-chart.png

The #1 trade level is marked with the blue line and it’s been around since December 2024. Notice the relative strength line (bottom of the chart) that measures AMZN’s performance against the S&P 500 index. In 2024, this line was moving up, suggesting that AMZN was stronger than the overall index.

Compare that to the relative strength line in 2025. The line is mostly flat. This suggests that AMZN is moving along with the index and not really outperforming it as it did in 2024.

Conclusion

What do we know?

  • AMZN is consolidating near a very high volume level
  • Leveraged ETFs are also near some significant volume levels with large trades
  • AMZN’s recent relative strength doesn’t match the pattern from 2024
  • A break above $223.30 or a break below $219.40 would be significant (more significant with multiple daily closes above or below)

Something is giving traders pause with AMZN here and we should be ready for a move in either direction. Lots of AWS business has come from AI-related products and TSM (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) reports earnings on July 17th. If TSM’s earnings are strong and they’re shipping plenty of semiconductors, this could be a bullish sign for AMZN.

As for me, I’m putting alerts on the #1 and #6 levels and waiting to see what happens. I’m also watching for any significant trades across AMZN’s leveraged ETFs in anticipation of a quick short term move.

Good luck with your trades! 🍀