Apple and Amazon Join Earnings Bonanza, Pandora Halts: Market Recap

Markets closed up Thursday on Wall Street:

S&P 500: +0.30%, Nasdaq: +0.15%, Dow: +0.20%, Oil: +0.54%, Gold: +0.69%.

On the commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) broke a 5-day streak and rose to $86.19 per barrel. Precious metals are up, with Gold (NYSE:GLD) rising to $1,713.50 per ounce, and Silver (NYSE:SLV) climbing to $32.14 per ounce after the bell.

Here’s your Cheat Sheet to Thursday’s top stock stories:

S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) component Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) reported its results for the third quarter. Sprint Nextel offers a range of wireless and wireline communications products and services. Read our Sprint earnings report.

Aetna (NYSE:AET) closed up 1.09 percent after releasing earnings of $1.55 per share, beating expectations by $0.21. Proctor & Gamble (NYSE:PG) closed up 2.92 percent on strong earnings that were in line with estimates. ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) released earnings of $1.44 per share, beating estimates by $0.31. Read more about Thursday’s earnings.

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Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) releases fourth quarter 2012 results. Earnings per share of $8.67 miss by $0.08. Revenue grew 27 percent year over year to $36 billion, beating by 200 million. Some sales highlights are 26.9 million iPhones and 14 million iPads sold. Shares were temporarily halted, and down as much as 1.18 percent after hours.

Pandora (NYSE:P) gets no love from investors, crashing over 10 percent and triggering a halt as rumors of an Apple Internet radio surface. The company is reportedly in “serious talks” with major music labels.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) releases third quarter earnings per share of -$0.60, below estimates. Revenue grew 27 percent year over year to $13.8 billion, missing by $90 million. Shares dropped as much as 2.4 percent after hours.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced its Pending Home Sales Index gained 0.3 percent to 99.5 in the month of September, a less-than-expected, albeit still positive, improvement for the housing market. The number of contracts signed to purchase existing homes rose much more modestly than economists had expected, but any sort of gain is still a step in the right direction after a decline of 2.6 percent in August. Experts surveyed by Reuters had forecast a rise of some 2.1 percent in signed contracts.

Oil fell for five days straight to close on October 24 at $85.73 per barrel, its lowest since July. U.S. commercial crude oil inventories are pushing against the upper limit for the average this time of year. At 375.1 million barrels, inventories are at their highest level since 1982. Supplies are 11.1 percent above last year’s level. Prices dropped about 7 percent in a week since last Thursday.

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