Earnings, Quarterly Earnings | featured news

Netflix stock is on its way to its biggest one-day gain since the video subscription service went public more than a decade ago. The stock had climbed $38.40, or 37 percent, to $141.66 in early afternoon trading Thursday as investors celebrated a fourth-quarter earnings report that Netflix Inc. released late Wednesday. Earlier in the session, the shares hit a new 52-week high of $149.17.

Samsung Electronics is expected to announce its Q4 results on January 25. The electronics giant has already given a sneak peek into its earnings, announcing earlier this month that its operating profits grew close to 90% y-o-y to a record 8.8 trillion Won ($8.3 billion) during the holiday quarter.

Apple Inc missed revenue expectations for the third straight quarter after sales of its flagship iPhone came in below Wall Street's targets, driving its shares down 6 percent.

If the latest week of earnings season has told investors anything, it is that strong banks and energy companies are getting stronger, while weaker banks and technology companies are far from conquering the challenges they have faced in the last few years.

EBay Inc reported holiday quarter results that just beat Wall Street expectations, but the e-commerce company also gave a cautious forecast for 2013. EBay shares climbed 1.7 percent to $53.80 in after-hours trading following the announcement. Expectations were high ahead of the results because sales data from outside sources suggested strong sales growth from eBay's online marketplace and a solid increase in transactions processed by the company's PayPal payments business.

Samsung sold more than 97 million mobile phones in the third quarter, besting Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone by more than 74 million units. According to Gartner (NYSE: IT), nearly 428 million mobile phones were sold during the quarter. Approximately 23.5 million of those phones were manufactured by Apple — 97.9 million were made by Samsung.

Inventories at U.S. wholesalers rise at the fastest pace this year in September, adding to evidence that 3Q growth may have been stronger than initially thought.

Groupon’s quarterly loss narrowed as the online-coupon service cut marketing costs but revenue growth continued to slow. Its shares tumbled after hours.

Wendy's says its net loss widened in the third quarter as it paid off debt, but noted that a key sales figure rose. The company, which is in the midst of a turnaround push, says revenue at restaurants open at least 15 months rose 2.7 percent, marking the sixth straight quarter of growth.

Shares in AOL have jumped 14% after the US internet firm reported a sharp rise in advertising revenues. Advertising sales jumped 7% to $340m (£212m), boosting net profit for the third quarter to $20.8m, compared with a loss of $2.6m a year ago.