Once upon a time, after the closing bell, Amazon.com came to surprise investors and book-worms around the world with their more than doubled first quarter profits. Literally the word "sucked" best explained this company, given that over the past two years they were practically struggled to keep their pants on. Investing heavily into technological improvements and diversifying revenue generating businesses gave them a strong boost today. They also came out to say that they're lifting its revenue outlook for the year. Quarterly profit rose to $111 million, or 26 cents per share. Last year the same figure was cut more than half at $51million, or 12 cents per share. Analysts had been expecting 15 cents per share, 11 cents under reality - 73% off. The stock climbed $5.55, up 12.4%, to $50.30 in after-hours trading today.
The "Big-Blue" also gave a good name to the tech market today too. They didn't annouce results or anything, but they did say that they're increasing dividends to 40 cents from 30 cents each quarter - a simple sentence that will cost them over $2 billion in dollars. Of course, $2 billion to cheer up investors was probably worth it. On top of that they're going to spend an additional $15 billion to purchase its own stock back. With money left over from a previous authorization, the company now has $16.4 billion to spend on that purpose. That basically hints that the company thinks its shares are cheap enough to buy them back. Historically when something like this happens, it triggers a continued rise in share prices. It's already started. IBM's shares gained $4.27, up 4.5%, to $99.48 today.
TZOO, sucks sucks sucks! Their share prices made it as high as $39 over the past few weeks as investors anticipated a surprise in earnings, much like they did last summer. On top of that, news comes of the Company spreading to Europe and opening offices in Asia and Hong Kong - which was the latest pit-stop in The Amazing Race All-Stars. So after closing bell today, at 2:00pm pacific-time, when they came out to announce medicore sucky results, their share prices just PLUMMETED. First-quarter net earnings were flat at $4.1 million, or 25 cents per share. Thing was expectations was at 32 cents a share. Excuses included higher operating expenses that rose to $11.9 million from $9.7 million, and it invested $6.7 million in subscriber acquisition and marketing. It posted revenue of $19.7 million in the quarter while analysts were expecting $20.4 million. Shares of the company fell down to $30.84, down 16% after-hours from $36.88 at closing bell.
BIDU, the market-proclaimed Google of China is very interesting. You see, the thing with this stock is that it's so highly volatile and unpredictable it's actually fun to watch and talk about - especially when no money is involved. At almost $104, its already jumped well above its resistance level at $102.5 which is the upper bollinger band. In simple English, it means that this technical indicator shows a bullish sign, for the stock to keep recovering upwards. Interestingly, it is most probably what happened with TZOO, being that investors are anticipating good earnings and are pricing this into the stocks price. Some analysts however are hinting to early signs that BIDU's search-ad sales activity was soft in this first quarter. Revenue being their main revenue source will hit their results. Other companies that help BIDU resell ad space also suggested that last year's awesome performance and rapid growth in sales may have begun to stabilize. These are quotes for those on the front-line, of course, I do not dare say anything. I just can't wait to see how they'll do when they announce on Thursday, April 26 - at 5pm pacific-time.