The Financial Post reports in its Friday edition that Amazon shares have been dogged for most of the year by concerns the company's cloud-computing business was losing ground to rivals. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says those fears have been put to rest for the time being. With earnings results last week showing the fastest quarterly growth for Amazon Web Services since 2022 followed by a $38-billion cloud deal with OpenAI, investors are optimistic (all figures U.S.). The one-two punch has delivered a 12-per-cent gain in four trading days, adding $300-billion in market value and sending the stock to its first record since February. "Taken together, the results and OpenAI deal suggest that the acceleration in AWS growth could be sustainable," said Robert Pavlik at Dakota Wealth Management, which has about $7-billion in assets. "Investors are going to have to take Amazon more seriously when they're considering how to invest in the AI space, since this shows it is one of the few companies that's coming through and delivering a tangible return from all the money it's spending." Amazon remains an underperformer this year. The stock's 14-per-cent gain trails the S&P 500 (up 16 per cent) and Nasdaq (up 22 per cent).