Amazon No Help for Plunging Stock Market

Investors looking to Amazon for help stopping an economy and stock market in freefall got no help on Wednesday.

On a day that the S&P 500 plunged 6% to a new five-year-low, Amazon came out with slightly better than expected third-quarter earnings after the close — but warned that fourth-quarter sales could come in well below estimates. Amazon shares plunged 13% in late trading after saying its sales for the critical holiday season will come in at $6 billion to $7 billion, potentially well below estimates of $7.05 billion.

Also after the close, Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) jumped 10% on solid results and guidance.

Despite the steep plunge in equity markets during the day, a few technology names managed to gain on results that weren’t as bad as feared. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), EMC (NYSE: EMC), VMware (NYSE: VMW) and Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) all gained on their earnings reports.

AT&T (NYSE: T) fell 7% after missing earnings estimates because of high iPhone subsidies.

SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) lost a third of its value after Samsung withdrew a takeover offer for the company.

QLogic (NASDAQ: QLGC) lost 6% after lowering sales guidance.

The Nasdaq fell 81 to 1615, the S&P lost 58 to 896, and the Dow tumbled 514 to 8519. Volume rose to 6.26 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.62 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 29-5 margin on the NYSE, and 24-4 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 96% on the NYSE, and 87% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 8-537 on the NYSE, and 3-327 on the Nasdaq.