Amazon sales soar, market edges upwards

  • 29/07/2016
(Newshub.)
(Newshub.)

Amazon.com Inc is reporting a 31.1 percent rise in quarterly revenue, powered by blockbuster growth in its cloud services unit and an increase in subscriptions for its Prime loyalty program.

Amazon is the world's biggest online retailer.  It also offers a subscription service Amazon Prime, which lets customers borrow or buy music, movies and e-books.

Net sales at the company rose to US$30.40 billion (NZ$43b) in second quarter ended June 30 from US$23.19 billion (NZ$32.7b) a year earlier.

The company's net income rose to US$857 million (NZ$1.2b), or US$1.78 per share, from US$92 m (NZ$130m), or 19 US cents per share, a year earlier.

Wall Street edged higher as investors looked beyond disappointing earnings from Ford and bought shares in Apple, while Alphabet surged after the bell following its quarterly report.

It was the 10th session of range-bound trading, following a sharp rally in late June and early July that hit record highs and has left the S&P 500 up six percent for the year.

Amazon.com rose 1.7 percent after its quarterly report.

"Tech has been pretty much the strongest sector over the last month. Momentum players are focusing to buy on pullbacks," said Michael Matousek, head trader at US Global Investors in San Antonio.

Earlier, Apple rose 1.35 percent, giving the S&P 500 its biggest lift.

In extended trade, Alphabet jumped four percent after the Google parent-company reported stronger-than-expected revenue.

Six of the 10 major S&P 500 sectors ended higher, with the consumer staples sector up 0.47 percent.

Ford reported weak China sales and declared that the US auto industry's long recovery was at an end, triggering a 8.16-percent fall in its shares.

The stock was the biggest drag on the S&P 500 index.

The carmaker's dismal forecast rattled the wider automobile market, with shares of General Motors falling 3.22 percent and Fiat Chrysler 4.77 percent.

A report by the US Labor Department showed that the number of people claiming unemployment benefits rose more than expected to 266,000 for the week ended July 22.

The Dow Jones industrial average edged down 0.09 percent to end at 18,456.35 points and the S&P 500 gained 0.16 percent to 2,170.06.

The Nasdaq Composite added 0.3 percent to 5,154.98.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.07-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.13-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 36 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 114 new highs and 25 new lows.

About 6.6 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, just below the nearly 6.7 billion daily average over the past 20 sessions.

Reuters