Amazon's Profit Shocks Wall Street, Sending Shares Higher

Shares of Amazon (AMZN) topped the S&P 500 on Friday with a 10 percent gain after posting a surprise profit during the second quarter. The stock is TheStreet's Move of the Day. Earnings per share came in at $0.19, while analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a $0.14 loss. Revenue totaled $23.2 billion - a 20 percent year-over-year jump, and above the $22.4 billion analysts were looking for. The blowout quarter was driven in part by strength in Amazon Web Services, its cloud business. Sales in the division totaled $1.82 billion, an 81 percent rise over the past year. As for guidance, the Seattle-based e-commerce behemoth expects third quarter revenue in the range of $23.3 billion to $25.5 billion, a 13-24 percent year-over-year jump. Though it does expect a loss in the range of $480 million to a profit of $70 million. Shares of Amazon rose 72 percent since the start of the year. TheStreet's Scott Gamm reports from New York.