Apple, Amazon.com Post Huge Earnings

I feel like I've been transported back to 1999, when the tech bubble continued to grow and it seemed like every day stocks like Amazon.com and EBay and Yahoo were going up, 25, 30%. First, Amazon.com posts huge earnings on Tuesday (we'll get to that in a moment) and its stock goes up 26% on Wednesday, then Apple responds in kind with their own blowout quarter this afternoon according to the Associated Press.

Apple Inc. blew past Wall Street expectations Wednesday, posting quarterly profits that jumped by 88 percent, fueled by strong sales of its iPod players and Macintosh computers.

In the first three months of the year, the Cupertino-based company said it earned $770 million, or 87 cents per share, up from $410 million, or 47 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Sales were $5.26 billion, up 21 percent from $4.36 billion last year.

Analysts, on average, were looking for earnings of 64 cents per share on sales of $5.17 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Financial.

The stock is currently up almost 8% after hours, and it is probably only getting started. $5.26 billion in sales is gigantic number, and this is before the Apple IPhone and the Apple TV. Imagine what their sales numbers are going to be like once those products are released. It's almost scary to think about.

Then there's Amazon.com. I wrote about that stock earlier this afternoon, in a post I've moved and reposted here. As I took a break from studying earlier this afternoon to watch some of CNBC's Street Signs with the great Erin Burnett, she was discussing Amazon.com's blowout financial quarter and the stock is up 26.75% as of this writing, up $11.93 to $56.66. I don't think Amazon ever went up that much in the entire time I owned it, which was many years, as I waited, and waited, and waited for it to regain its former glory. Today does remind though of following the tech boom in high school (and, sadly, not investing in Amazon.com like I should have, too bad the Detroit News wasn't paying me more to write my sports columns) when stocks like Amazon, Yahoo, and EBay would go up 25, 30% seemingly every day. Except back then, the stocks were 300, 400 dollar stocks, not $55 stocks. I owned a small amount of Amazon for a while, but mainly it was a learning experience, as I got in far too late, as the tech bubble was bursting, and had to wait for years for the stock to do anything other than go down. I waited for a day like today during my holding of Amazon. Never quite happened though. And I love Amazon.com, as a company. I love buying books, and I can't remember the last time I bought a book at a bookstore. Just too expensive compared to Amazon.

With giants like Microsoft set to report earnings tomorrow and the Dow Jones Industrials Average hitting 13,000 today, it certainly has a feel of 1999, even if the NASDAQ is still at half the amount it was at its peak. Oh to be able to go back and buy Yahoo and Amazon and EBay before anyone could pronounce Yahoo or EBay. Or even Google for that matter. Next time, maybe.