Research in Motion and Red Hat
posted quarterly results late Wednesday that surpassed Wall Street expectations.
RIM showed little effect from its patent battle with NTP, reporting earnings of 71 cents a share on a 53% jump in sales, handily beating estimates, and the company raised February quarter guidance too. RIM added 645,000 subscribers in the quarter, for a total of 4.3 million, but the company lowered its current quarter subscriber guidance by 50,000 to 700,000 to 750,000.
“Although our litigation has certainly been pulled into the spotlight recently, we remain intensely focused on serving our customers and partners and maintaining our longstanding culture of innovation,” RIM CEO Jim Balsillie said in a statement.
The company said on a conference call that it continues to work on a workaround and a settlement with NTP to avoid a shutdown of its U.S. operations.
RIMM shares rose 5% after hours.
Red Hat saw its shares rise 4%, on top of a 3% gain during the day, after the company beat earnings and sales estimates on a 54% jump in subscription revenue. Micron , meanwhile, slipped 2% despite beating earnings and sales estimates. Tibco
rose 7% after topping forecasts.
Stocks rose during the day, fueled by a couple of high-profile technology mergers.
The Nasdaq rose 9 to 2231, the S&P 500 added 3 to 1262, and the Dow climbed 28 to 10,833. Volume rose to 2.09 billion shares on the NYSE, but declined to 1.68 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 20-12 on the NYSE, and 18-11 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 66% on the NYSE, and 62% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 99-104 on the NYSE, and 81-55 on the Nasdaq.
Seagate’s acquisition of Maxtor
lit a fire under the disk drive sector.
Micromuse soared on a buyout offer from IBM
.
Jabil and Palm
jumped on their results.
