Amazon s earnings, sales miss forecasts

MarketWatch.com - MarketPulse SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Amazon.com Inc. shares fell as much as 8% in after-hours trading Thursday after the online-retailing company reported fourth-quarter results that missed Wall Street analysts consensus estimates. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, Amazon said it earned $239 million, or 51 cents a share, on revenue of $25.59 billion. During the year-ago period, Amazon earned $97 million, or 21 cents a share, on $21.27 million in sales. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast Amazon to earn 74 cents a share on $26.05 billion in revenue. Amazon also gave a first-quarter sales forecast of between $18.2 billion and $19.9 billion, while analysts were looking for revenue of $19.67 billion for the quarter.Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.