eBay, VMware Beat the Street as Rally Continues

VMware (NYSE: VMW) and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) became the latest to top Wall Street forecasts late Wednesday as the Nasdaq’s winning streak entered its 11th day.

VMware shares jumped 7% in after-hours trading after the server virtualization leader posted quarterly earnings and sales that were just above analysts’ estimates. Sales of $456 million were flat with the year-ago quarter, while pro forma earnings of 20 cents a share were down 3 cents from the second quarter of 2008. The company’s third-quarter sales forecast was also higher than expected.

eBay shares were up more than 3% in late trading after the company reported earnings and sales that were just ahead of estimates, and the company raised its third-quarter sales outlook too.

SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) was another winner in the after-hours trading session, but Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) fell 4% on its results.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) led the Nasdaq higher during the day as investors cheered their earnings reports, but AMD (NYSE: AMD) tumbled 13% on a wider than expected loss.

ClickSoftware (NASDAQ: CLSW) soared 20% on its results, while QLogic (NASDAQ: QLGC) slipped 4.7% on its numbers.

Thursday will see earnings reports from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), EMC (NYSE: EMC), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Juniper (NASDAQ: JNPR) and AT&T (NYSE: T). Amazon announced late today that it will acquire Zappos in a deal valued at more than $800 million.

The Nasdaq rose 10 to 1926, the S&P 500 slipped a fraction to 954, and the Dow lost 34 to 8881. Volume fell to 4.84 billion shares on the NYSE, but rose to 2.38 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 21-15 margin on the NYSE, and 16-10 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 57% on the NYSE, and 67% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 78-75 on the NYSE, and 64-20 on the Nasdaq.