Red Hat, Micron Rise on Earnings

Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) and Micron (NYSE: MU) gained in after-hours trading Tuesday after the tech companies posted quarterly results that topped Wall Street forecasts.

Micron returned to profitability with much better than expected earnings of 23 cents a share. Sales rose 24 percent from the year-ago quarter to $1.74 billion, also better than anticipated, on improved DRAM and NAND pricing and sales.

Red Hat, meanwhile continued to show that it can earn money from open source software, beating estimates with earnings of 17 cents a share on an 18 percent increase in sales to $194.3 million.

Shares of both companies gained about 2 percent in after-hours trading.

Also after the close, AOL (NYSE: AOL) reported that it would lay off a third of its workforce, and Tibco (NASDAQ: TIBX) also delivered better than anticipated results.

Jabil (NYSE: JBL) was the big winner during the day, soaring 14 percent after the important contract manufacturer reported improving demand, good news for customers like Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) and HP (NYSE: HPQ).

Amkor (NASDAQ: AMKR) surged 12 percent after raising guidance, but Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) fell 3.6 percent despite reports of strong sales in Europe.

The Nasdaq rose 15 to 2252, the S&P 500 gained 3 to 1118, and the Dow rose 50 to 10,464. Volume fell to 3.64 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.75 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 24-14 margin on the NYSE, and 16-11 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 59 percent on the NYSE, and 69 percent on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 379-75 on the NYSE, and 180-25 on the Nasdaq.