In one of the stranger days in recent stock market history, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) both surged on stellar earnings reports even as the rest of the market fell sharply.
Amazon soared a stunning 27 percent to $118.89, eclipsing its December 1999 all-time high by more than $5, after the online retailing giant blew past Wall Street estimates and said current quarter sales estimates may be too low by $1 billion.
Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) also hit a new all-time high on its numbers, and Microsoft jumped 5 percent on stronger than expected results.
But Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM), CA (NYSE: CA), Western Digital (NYSE: WDC), Juniper (NASDAQ: JNPR), Avid (NASDAQ: AVID), Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD), Rambus (NASDAQ: RMBS) and PMC-Sierra (NASDAQ: PMCS) lost ground on their earnings reports.
The broader market was once again hit by concerns about the strength of the economic recovery, led lower by cautious comments from railroad companies and worries about holiday spending.
Bottomline (NASDAQ: EPAY) and RightNow (NASDAQ: RNOW) were other earnings winners.
The Nasdaq lost 10 to 2154, the S&P 500 fell 13 to 1079, and the Dow lost 109 to 9972. Volume declined to 4.77 billion shares on the NYSE, and rose to 2.48 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 28-9 margin on the NYSE, and 20-6 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 88 percent on the NYSE, and 69 percent on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 250-36 on the NYSE, and 102-18 on the Nasdaq.