Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) stock traded lower on Monday as investors weighed broader macroeconomic pressure, competitive friction in artificial intelligence and concerns over the company's heavy infrastructure spending.

The Big Tech giant continues to invest across delivery, AI and its workforce as it looks to strengthen its retail network, expand cloud opportunities and position itself for emerging agent-driven commerce.

Bank Of America Sees Same-Day Delivery Upside

Earlier in September, BofA Securities analyst Justin Post reiterated a Buy rating and $320 price forecast, citing Amazon's proposed Project Mercury as a potentially important expansion of its fulfillment network.

Amazon is considering increasing its Sub Same-Day network to more than 1,000 facilities by 2031 from 85 today. Those facilities would stock roughly 90,000 fast-selling products, including household essentials, groceries and medicines.

Amazon estimates that investing $6.8 billion over three years could generate $7.1 billion in economic value over 10 years and turn cash-flow positive by 2030.

Post said the expansion could help Amazon narrow Walmart Inc. (WMT)'s delivery advantage by bringing same-day capacity within 10 miles of 80% of U.S. Prime members by 2031.

He also expects a denser fulfillment network and continued automation to support retail-margin improvement. Post sees additional opportunities from AWS, Amazon's chips and Bedrock as AI adoption expands across cloud computing and retail.

Amazon Raises Worker Pay And Benefits

Two weeks ago, Amazon also increased minimum starting pay for full-time U.S. operations employees by $1 to $20 an hour.

The increase lifts the average wage to nearly $24 an hour, while total compensation exceeds $32 when benefits are included.

Amazon also introduced a new banking benefit and expanded grocery discounts for employees through Amazon.com and Whole Foods.

ARK Questions Amazon's Agentic Commerce Strategy

Meanwhile, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood agreed with analyst Nick Grous that Amazon's decision to block Meta's Muse creates a test of customer loyalty and the potential of agent-driven commerce.

Grous said Amazon is protecting an advertising business generating roughly $70 billion, arguing that autonomous shopping agents could weaken advertising economics and reduce Amazon's control over customer relationships.

Amazon blocked Muse over concerns involving permission and customer credentials, but later opened its seller platform to Anthropic's Claude.

Grous contrasted Amazon's approach with retailers including Walmart, Best Buy, Gap and Shopify, which have allowed Muse to operate on their platforms.

ARK sold 20,000 Amazon shares earlier this month, while separately projecting that Amazon Web Services could eventually become a trillion-dollar-per-year business.

Top ETF Exposure

The First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund (FDN) holds a 9.78% weight in Amazon, while the Eagle Capital Select Equity ETF (EAGL) carries an 8.71% weight and the Franklin Focused Dynamic Growth ETF (FFOG) holds a 9.13% weight.

Significant inflows or outflows from these funds can translate into buying or selling of Amazon shares.

AMZN Stock Price Activity: Amazon.com shares were down 1.17% at $246.75 at the time of publication on Monday, according to market data.