AMD Beats, But Apple Misses

AMD posted blow-out quarterly results after the close on Tuesday, but shares of Apple slid 10% after the company missed sales estimates.

AMD’s earnings of 18 cents a share beat estimates by a dime, and revenues of $1.52 billion were 10% better than analysts expected.

“This was another record-breaking quarter for AMD’s microprocessor business,” AMD CFO Robert Rivet said in a statement. “Exceptional customer demand for our server, mobile and desktop processors helped drive microprocessor sales growth of 44 percent compared to the third quarter of 2004 and 26 percent compared to the second quarter of 2005. We established new quarterly records in unit and dollar sales, gross margin and operating income.”

Shares of AMD climbed about 2% after hours, but Apple shareholders suffered after the iPod maker’s sales came in shy of analysts’ estimates.

Apple’s pro forma earnings of 38 cents a share topped forecasts by a penny, but sales of $3.68 billion were less than the $3.73 billion Wall Street was looking for, as iPod sales of 6.45 million were about 500,000 short of expectations. The company said demand was “staggering” for the new iPod nano, but component shortages prevented it from meeting demand. The company’s results were up significantly from the year-ago quarter, and Apple even raised guidance for the coming quarter, but investors clearly wanted more.

Stocks traded mixed during the day, as rising oil prices and inflation fears once again weighed on the market.

The Nasdaq tumbled 18 to 2061, the S&P 500 lost 2 to 1184, and the Dow added 14 to 10,253. Volume rose to 2.27 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.89 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 20-12 on the NYSE, and 21-8 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 64% on the NYSE, and 79% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 32-192 on the NYSE, and 44-128 on the Nasdaq.

RealNetworks soared 34% after settling its legal dispute with Microsoft .

International Rectifier , Compuware , Pheonix Technologies , Skyworks and SigmaTel tumbled on warnings.

IBM climbed 2.4% on its second upgrade in two days.

Lattice Semi and Lightbridge climbed after raising guidance.

Neoforma rose on a takeover offer.