IBM tops Q4 expectations (IBM)

Shares of AMD traded at $18.88 in after-hours activity on the Island ECN, immediately following the release of quarterly results. AMD stock rose 8 percent to $18.50 in Wednesday's regular trading, ahead of the earnings report.

i2 Technologies topped analysts' raised expectations by a penny in the fourth quarter.
After market close Wednesday, the business-to-business software maker reported fourth-quarter net income of $44 million, or 9 cents per share, excluding amortization and special charges. Analyst consensus predicted a profit of 8 cents per share on revenue of $349.9 million, according to First Call.

-- Crude futures prices closed below $30 a barrel Wednesday after OPEC formally agreed to cut its oil production quota by 5 percent, or 1.5 million barrels per day.
"This was the amount the market has been anticipating for most of the last month, although in the last three to four days there was whispers of a higher cut,"

Tame December inflation figures may make the Federal Reserve's job a bit easier when the group looks at interest rates later this month.
The consumer price index for the final month of the year rose 0.2 percent, figures from the Labor Department showed Wednesday. That increase exactly matched a forecast in a survey of economists by CBS.MarketWatch.com.
The core rate, which removes the more-volatile components of food and energy, rose a smaller-than-expected 0.1 percent in December.

Der Computerkonzern Apple meldete im abgelaufenen ersten Quartal des laufenden Geschäftsjahres den ersten Verlust seit drei Jahren. Er lag bei 195 Mio. Dollar oder 58 Cents je Aktie nach einem Gewinn von 183 Mio. Dollar oder 51 Cents im Vorjahresquartal. Die Umsätze fielen im Berichtszeitraum auf 1,01 Mrd. Dollar.