Why Amazon, Microsoft, Xerox And Amgen Are Moving In After-Hours

Shares of Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN were trading down almost 13 percent on Thursday’s after-hours session, following the announcement of the company’s fourth quarter fiscal 2015 financial results. Earnings of $1.00 per share missed consensus estimates by $0.61. Sales of $35.747 billion also fell short of expectations for $35.901 billion in revenue. Management blamed the earnings miss on higher operating expenses and slower growth in its cloud services segment.

On the other hand, Microsoft Corporation MSFT was trading up more than 5.3 percent on its earnings call. The tech giant reported EPS of $0.78, $0.09 above the Street’s consensus. Sales of $25.693 billion also beat expectations for $25.111 billion in revenue. The company said the beat was partly driven by strong sales of cloud software products.

Also trading up on its earnings report was Amgen, Inc. AMGN, which gained 0.44 percent since the bell rang. The biotech posted earnings of $2.61 per share on revenue of $5.536, beating the Street’s estimate of $2.27 per share and $5.532 billion.

Back to decliners, there’s Xerox Corp XRX, down 0.75 percent since the market closed. The decline was prompted by a Wall Street Journal report that assured that the company will be split in two soon. People familiar with the issue said that management would announce the separation of its hardware operations and services business on Friday, during its earnings call.

As part of this division, famed investor Carl Icahn will get three seats on Xerox’s Board of Directors. “The people said. Mr. Icahn in November disclosed a stake that currently stands at more than 8% and said he would seek talks with the copier maker about its future,” the WSJ article read.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.