Amazon misses 3Q profit forecasts

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. fell in after-market trading on Thursday after the online retailer reported third-quarter net income that missed analyst expectations.

The Seattle-based company said it had profit of $252 million, or 52 cents per share.

The average estimate of 15 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 85 cents per share.

The online retailer posted revenue of $32.71 billion in the period, which topped Street forecasts. Twelve analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $32.57 billion.

For the current quarter ending in December, Amazon said it expects revenue in the range of $42 billion to $45.5 billion. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected revenue of $44.7 billion.

Amazon shares have increased 21 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has increased slightly more than 4 percent. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $821.01, a climb of 34 percent in the last 12 months.

Shares fell $46.51, or 5.7 percent, to $771.93 in aftermarket trading.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on AMZN at https://www.zacks.com/ap/AMZN

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