Amazon Stock Soars

Amazon.com Inc. said Thursday that its fourth quarter profit rose 9 percent and easily surpassed analysts' forecasts. Those results, plus an optimistic forecast, sent its shares soaring 13 percent in extended trading. Amazon had called the holiday season its best ever and the earnings report backed up the idea that the online retailer is not being seriously hurt by cutbacks in consumer spending. This is really good news. They also said their revenue in the current quarter should be between $4.53 billion and $4.93 billion while analysts are expecting $4.57 billion. Shares of the Seattle based company shot up $6.39, or 12.8 percent, to $56.39 in after hours trading. The stock had fallen 36 cents to finish regular trading at $50.

Microsoft Doing Well

Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday that its fiscal first quarter profit edged up 2 percent. This was brought about by corporate customers renewing licenses for servers and other business programs. Microsoft's guidance for the current quarter was weaker than Wall Street was expecting, however, shares rose in extended trading following this report.

That is a sign that investors had been worried it would be worse. You can't blame them with everything else seemingly going down the tube with the Dow taking a mighty fall. I don't have any shares right now and glad of it but wish I had a bunch of money because now is the time to buy those stocks of good companies that are way down. There is money to be made down the line.

General Electric Quarterly Profits Up

General Electric Co. delivered some good news Friday to investors who worried about a slowing economy, saying its quarterly profit rose 4 percent and reaffirming its outlook for 2008. The conglomerate's big ticket business - jet engines, railroad locomotives, and water treatment plants, powered GE's profit, posting $3.4 billion, or 26 percent more than the fourth quarter of 2006. It also gave GE a global reach that should help blunt the impact of a possible U.S. recession.