Amazon Leads E-Tailer Rally Despite Brief Outage

Amazon (AMZN) shares rose Friday as the official holiday shopping season began, even though its site suffered a brief late-morning outage.

Shares in the bellwether e-tailer rose $3.81, or 15%, to close at $29 on Black Friday. Other Internet retailers also rallied: eToys (ETYS) rose 59 cents, or 49%, to $1.81. Buy.com (BUYX) rose 25 cents, or 25%, to $1.25, and eBay (EBAY), which doesn't typically enjoy a big holiday sales bump, rose 12.4%.

Much of Amazon's site was unavailable for about 30 minutes on Friday morning. Visitors to the site at about 11:30 a.m. EST were told that Amazon's books, music, DVD and video, toys and games, electronics and software, and home improvement stores were "closed temporarily." An Amazon spokeswoman wasn't aware of how long the site had been down. It was functioning again around noon.

Amazon's auction and z-shops businesses were still available during the outage.