That’s partly because the 44% sales jump to $125.6bn (£92bn) in the fourth quarter, with net income more than doubling to $7.2bn (£5.3bn), understandably reassured investors that the juggernaut powers on. 

It also reflected the fact that Bezos will continue to be involved at Amazon – he will become executive chair – rather than sailing off into the sunset. 

And it showed confidence in Andy Jassy as Bezos’ successor as CEO – after all, he has been at the company since 1997 and built up its cloud computing business, a division that contributes about half of Amazon’s operating income.