Thomson Reuters
Packing tape sits atop a box at an Amazon Fulfillment Center, ahead of the Christmas rush, in Tracy, California
On Thursday evening, Amazon reported $23.18 billion in revenues - a 20% year-over-year jump. Earnings per share came in at $0.19, ahead of the consensus forecast for -$0.14.
The performance of Amazon Web Services also exceeded expectations, with net sales of $1.8 billion, an 81% year-over-year jump.
In premarket trading, the stock rose as much as 20% to around $581 per share. Amazon became bigger than Walmart by market capitalization on Thursday in after-hours trading.
And overnight, many sell-side analysts hiked their price targets on the stock, and all of the research notes we thumbed through were bullish.
RBC Capital Markets called Amazon its "#1 Long Recommendation," and Barclays analysts said they had been
"too pessimistic."
Here's what the jump in pre-market trading looked like, with the stock set to open at all-time highs on Friday:
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.