Microsoft has just jumped on Amazon as the second largest American company

Microsoft surpassed Amazon on Friday as the second most profitable US company after investors punished Jeff Bezos' e-commerce giant for disappointing quarterly results, wiping $ 65 billion off the online retailer's market capitalization.

Apple still tops the list with more than $ 1 trillion after crossing this threshold in September. Microsoft's market capitalization was highest on Wall Street between late 1998 and early 2000, before the burst of the Internet bubble.

Amazon shares fell by 7%, a record for nearly three years after the holiday sales outlook failed to deliver, raising fears that Wall's techies Street are finally starting to face increased competition.

Microsoft has dropped 2% more modest in the context of a massive sell-off of technology, also driven by a lower-than-expected Google-parent Alphabet report.

Shares of Microsoft remain up nearly 4% from Wednesday, as the ten-year-old software company surpassed its quarterly earnings forecast, driven by its cloud computing business that rivals that of Amazon.

Its stock market value on Friday stood at $ 823 billion, poised to move closer to Amazon's for the first time since April, when it sold its second-largest market capitalization position.

Amazon was worth $ 805 billion on Friday.

Amazon's plunge has left it up about 40% since the beginning of the year, while Microsoft has gained about 25% in 2018. On Wednesday, the shares of 39, Amazon traded at the equivalent of 70 times the expected earnings, its lowest level since 2011.