Amazon Shines While Sun Sets

Amazon.com shares surged in late trading Tuesday after the company blew past Wall Street estimates, but Sun slipped after its quarterly sales came up short of expectations.

Amazon’s earnings doubled to 26 cents a share, 11 cents more than analysts expected, and sales rose 32% to $3.02 billion, $100 million ahead of forecasts. The online retailing giant also raised current quarter forecasts.

“We’re pleased with our overall strong growth and especially with the number of people joining Amazon Prime,” Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said in a statement. “Prime continues to grow as a percentage of overall units shipped, and we’re very grateful to our Amazon Prime members.”

Sun earned $67 million, or 2 cents a share, in its most recent quarter, and sales climbed 3% to $3.3 billion. Sun’s profit beat expectations, but its revenues were $100 million short. The stock fell 5% in after-hours trading.

Stocks posted modest gains during the day as the Dow once again flirted with the 13,000 level.

Texas Instruments gained 8% after beating estimates. Alcatel Lucent rose despite warning that it would post a first-quarter loss.

Vonage soared on a big legal win.

CDW , Altera and Volterra gained on their earnings.

AT&T , Benchmark and Juniper lost ground on their results.

IBM jumped after raising its dividend.

The Nasdaq added 1 to 2524, the S&P 500 lost half a point to 1480, and the Dow rose 34 to 12,953. Volume rose to 3.19 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.34 billion on the Nasdaq. Declining issues led by a 17-14 margin on the NYSE, and 16-13 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 49% on the NYSE, and 54% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 226-24 on the NYSE, and 147-73 on the Nasdaq.