Tuesday's Aftermarket Movers: Gilead & Express Scripts Teases Ahead Of Twitter, Apple Results

US equities ended Tuesday's session slightly lower as investors and traders anxiously awaited several notably large earnings reports. Biopharmaceutical giant

was first to announce its earnings. The company earned $3.22 per share (on product sales of $8.2 billion), handily beating the $2.89 per share analyst were expecting. However, management revised its full year net product sales guidance to a range of $30 billion to $31 billion (from a previous $29 to $30 billion) which is still short of the $31.5 billion analyst were looking for. Shares of Gilead initially popped higher in the afterhours session but quickly dipped into negative territory. Shares of

closed the day lower by 1.50 percent at $84.05 after trading as low as $80.39. The company reported that it earned $1.45 per share on revenue of $25.222 billion. Analysts were looking for an earnings per share of $1.44 on revenue of $26.38 billion. Trading activity was relatively quiet as the stock was lower by another 0.63 percent at $83.52. Shares of

were volatile heading into its much anticipated print. The company said that it earned $0.10 per share in the quarter, five cents better than expected. Revenue of $569.0 million was also better than the $559.68 million expected. Twitter noted that its monthly active user base rose 11 percent year over year (or up one percent quarter over quarter) to 320 million. The company expects its fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA to fall in a range of $155 million to $175 million. Twitter's stock plunged lower by 10 percent and were seen trading at $28.15 following its report.

Shares of

closed the day lower by 0.63 percent at $114.55. The stock continued drifting lower and was at $114.21 at 4:28 – two minutes before the expected earnings release. Apple went on to report that it earned $1.96 per share in the fourth quarter (September ending) on revenue of $51.5 billion. This compares favorably to the $1.88 per share and $51.11 billion the Street was looking for. The company said that sales to Greater China rose to $12.5 billion in the quarter and it didn't see any slowdown in the country. Apple reported its fourth quarter iPhone retail units rose one percent to 48.046 million, iPad sales fell 10 percent to 9.883 million, and Mac sales rose 19 percent to 5.709 million. Shares moved lower by three percent following the report but quickly reversed and was seen trading higher at $117.40. Apple also guided its first quarter (December ending) revenue to $75.5 billion to $77.5 billion – mostly short of the $77.1 billion analysts were expecting. The stock went on to shed some of its gains and was seen trading at $115.67 (up 0.98 percent) four minutes following its release. By 4:37 the stock was once again above the $117 per share mark.