Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos has sold another batch of shares in the e-commerce giant, worth $1.5 billion, according to an exchange filing.
The top tech executive sold about 6.7 million Amazon shares in four transactions done on July 11 and July 14, as part of a previously approved stock divestment plan. He sold $736.7 million worth of shares earlier this month.
The share sale by Bezos, who ranks fourth in the Bloomberg Billionaire Index with a net worth of $247 billion, is grabbing headlines as it coincides with his wedding.
Last month, Jeff Bezos married his longtime girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, in a lavish three-day ceremony in Venice, Italy, with the event reportedly costing around $50 million.
While executives and insiders sell shares from time to time, these trades are often viewed as a bearish signal, potentially indicating limited confidence in the company's near-term stock performance.
Amazon shares are up 3.2% year-to-date, trailing the S&P 500's (SPX) 6.2% gain, as the company navigates headwinds in its core e-commerce and cloud businesses amid a challenging economic and policy environment that continues to impact customer demand.
The company's recent Prime Day sale, however, had a record uptake, allaying some concerns among investors.
On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for Amazon held in the 'bullish' zone, unchanged from a week ago.
A user noted a bar code pattern on the company's stock chart, suggesting range-bound price activity.
In March, Bezos adopted a plan to sell $4.7 billion worth of Amazon shares by May next year. He sold $13.4 billion of his stake last year.
Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore, which has today become the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing services company. With a $2 trillion market capitalization, Amazon is the fourth-most-valued public company in the world.
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