Netflix reported its third quarter results last night, which were actually above analyst estimates, but shares are tradign down over 35% in premarket trading as investors react to news of such a massive drop in the company’s subscribers, its first in years.

Earnings for the quarter were $1.16 per share, on revenues of $822 million. Analysts had been expecting to see the company report earnings of $0.96 per share, on revenues of $812.5 million.

Typically when a company reports such strong earnings and revenues its stock trades sharply higher, but investors feel as though the subscriber drop that Netflix saw during the quarter may not be over just yet. Netflix has historically been very good at understanding what its customers want, and that is the reason why it became the leader in DVD rental and streaming video, but a couple big blunders earlier this year have left its subscribers, and investors scratching their heads and wondering if Netflix has lost its ability to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to giving its subscribers what they want.

Netflix’s first big mistake was to raise its monthly fees. While this did result in a new record for revenues, the company paid for that with few subscribers, and in its highly competitive insdustry, subcriber numbers are the key to success. Following the decision to raise its rates, it made an even more dramatic blunder in its decision to split its streaming and DVD rental business. It later changed its mind and reversed the decision to split to the 2 businesses, but the impact the decision had on its customers was not so easy to reverse.

Has Netflix lost touch with its customers? It definitely did earlier this year, and while it has tried to correct its mistakes, you have to wonder if / when the next big mistake will come from the company’s management. Netflix still has a solid business model, but once a company loses its customers confidence, it is very hard to regain it, and we will just have to see if Netflix is able to get back on track, or if customers will continue to look for other ways to get their streaming media.

The stock is down 37%, or $44.00 in premarket trading to $74.77

Going into this afternoon’s earnings report, Apple was expected to report earnings of $7.38 per share, but actual earnings came in well below what analysts were expecting to see at just $7.02 per share. Revenues were also lower than expected at $28.3 billion, which do represent a 39 percent jump year over year, but below the $29.4 billion that analysts had been expecting to see.

One of the company’s strongest product lines is the iPhone, which was weak during its fiscal fourth quarter. With the new iPhone 4 release just around the corner, iPhone buys put off buying a new phone until this month when the 4S became available. Apple sold just 17.1 million iPhones during the quarter, down from 20.3 million during the previous quarter.

On a brighter note, Apple did issue better than expected first quarter earnings forecast. Apple typically low-balls its forward guidance while analysts forecast higher earnings, but not this time. Apple forecast that it would report first quarter earnings of $9.30 on revenues of $37 billion. Analyst have previously forecast that the company will have Q1 earnings of $9 per share on $36.7 billion in revenues.

After hours traders are selling off the stock pretty sharply, pushing shares down 6.6% to $396.80, down $27.86.

Going into this afternoon’s earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see Google report third quarter earnings of $8.74 per share, but actual earnings came in well above estimates at $9.72 a share.

Revenues during the quarter were $9.7 billion, higher than the $7.22 billion that Wall Street had been expecting to see.

In addition to strong ad revenues, Google also has seen nice growth in revenues stemming from its highly successful mobile operating system, Android. Last year the company saw annual revenue of $1 billion from its mobile business, but says that it is currently on track for $2.5 billion as Android continues to gain in popularity and is now the #1 mobile operating system on the market.

Google also shed some light on the strength of its new social network, Google+. The company announced that it had 40 million users sign up with the service, with 3.4 billion photos being uploaded so far to the network. The numbers are greater than analysts had expected, and a good sign that Google is making some progress in its competition with social media giant Facebook.

The company also announced that it had added an additional 2,585 employees during the quarter, lifting its total workforce to 31,353.

Google’s dominance of the U.S. search market continues to grow. As of the end of last year, the company controlled 74% of U.S. searches, and by the end of this year that is expected to grow to 76%.

The stock is currently trading up $35.61 at $594.60 (+6.4%) in after hours trading.

Going into this afternoon’s earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see Alcoa post earnings of $0.22 per share, but were disappointed to see earnings come in under expectations at $0.15 per share.

Despite missing its earnings estimate, the company was able to post better than expected revenues for the quarter of $6.4 billion, above the $6.2 billion that analysts had been expecting to see.

Alcoa’s CEO, Klaus Kleinfeld, blamed the lower than expected earnings numbers on falling aluminum prices, and uncertainty in Europe, which resulted in a tough environment for the company. Despite the lower than expected earnings, the company did maintain its growth forecast for the remainder of the year.

Since Alcoa is the first major company to report earnings, and since it makes aluminum for a wide variety of industries, it is viewed as a bellwether stock, and investors tend to place a lot of importance on its earnings reports. Just because Alcoa disappointed this afternoon does not necessarily mean that the rest of the earnings season is going to be weak, but it definitely does not paint a pretty picture either. We will get a better idea of what to expect during the remainder of the earnings season later this week with JP Morgan and Google report their quarterly numbers.

The stock was up a little over 2% in today’s session, but has dropped 4.2% in after hours trading.

Going into this morning earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see Procter & Gamble report earnings of $0.97 per share. Actual quarterly earnings came in a penny under analyst forecasts at $0.96 per share.

In addition to posting slightly lower than expected Q3 earnings, Procter & Gamble also lowered its full year forecast as the company continues to deal with rising costs.

Run up costs in materials and fuel is forcing the company to raise its prices on several of its biggest name products including Pampers, Gillete Razors, Charmin toilet tissue, as well as Duracell batteries. Certain parts of the country will see the price increases in effect by July.

Sales were in-line with analyst estimates at $20.2 billion during the quarter.

Full the full year, the company cut its top end estimate by 5 cents to a range of $3.91 to $3.96 per share.

The stock has been severely lagging against of the overall Dow Jones average which is up around 15% over the past year. During the same period PG stock is up just 1%.

The stock initially fell following this morning’s report, but have since rebounded a bit and is currently trading up 0.4% to $64.29.

As we noted in our Apple earnings preview, Apple was expected to post quarterly earnings of $5.36 for its fiscal second quarter this afternoon. Actual earnings came in well above estimates at $6.40 per share.

Revenues were also better than expected at $24.7 billion, while analysts were expecting $23.4 billion.

The quarter earnings mark a 98% jump from the same period last year, while year over year revenue growth was an impressive 83%.

Once again the iPhone was a huge success for the company, with 18.5 million devices sold during the second quarter alone, well above what analysts were expecting to see.

As we noted in our earnings preview, iPad 2 sales were a concern going into today’s report. Supply constraints have been weighing on the company and hampering its ability to meet strong demand for the tablet, and this did indeed impact quarterly sales of the new tablet.

Apple sold 4.7 million iPads during the period, which was below forecasts for between 6 and 8 million, but its strong iPhone sales more than made up for the disappointing iPad numbers.

Mac sales were up 28% year over year. iPod sales have been slowing down for Apple, and were down again this quarter by 17% year over year as consumers have been shying away from iPods and just using their iPhones and iPads to handle their music needs.

All in all, another great quarter for Apple, and the stock is being rewarded by after hours traders which have pushed shares up 3.6% to $354.84, up $12.43.

Going into this afternoon’s earnings report, analysts are expecting to see Apple report earnings of $5.36 per share. During the same period last year the company had earnings of $3.33 per share.

It has been a busy quarter for Apple, which launched the iPad 2, began its deal to sell iPhones through Verizon, and launched new MacBook pros.

The one thing that have investors a bit concerned is the number of iPad 2′s that the company sold during the quarter. Analysts forecast that the company would sell between 6 and 8 million units, but Apple made statements earlier this week that could be interpreted as though the company only sold a bit over 4 million of its new iPad 2.

Even if the iPad 2 sales numbers are a bit weak, it could still turn out to be a very strong quarter for the company, which has insinuated that it sold over 18 million iPhones during the quarter. The iPhone has a much larger profit margin for Apple, so a strong iPhone quarter could easily make up for any weakness the company made have had with its iPad sales.

Apple retail stores continue to face demand problems for the iPad 2, so we will be looking for any statements regarding the supply / demand situation for the popular tablet.

Results will come out following today’s market close, and we will update all the results and market reaction when they become available.

The stock is trading up 2.2% in morning trading to $345.29, up $7.43.

What makes tomorrow’s conference call all the more interesting to investors is that it will mark the first time that Larry Page will make public comments since he assumed his original role as the company’s CEO.

Page, who was one of the company’s founders, announced in late January his intention to take pace his CEO duties, but has been silent ever since, causing a bit of concern among investors as to how he intends to run the company.

His silence is partly to blame for why Google stock has traded down around 9% since he made his announcement. Should investors get served positive earnings and like what they hear from Page, the stock could make a nice rebound in the weeks to come.

The company has announced that it intends to eliminate bureaucracy in order to get new products more quickly to the market. Google also is undergoing a major increase in its staffing, which by adding an additional 6,200 will increase its payroll expense by around 25% by the end of the current year.

Revenues are expected to come in at $6.3 billion during the quarter.

Going into tomorrow’s earnings report, analysts are expecting to see Carmax report earnings of $0.38 per share. During the same period last year the company had earnings of $0.33.

Carmax has a strong history of posting better than expected earnings… easily surpassing analyst estimates for each of its past 8 quarters.

Over the past month the stock had been in steady downward trend, but has traded up slightly higher over the past week after the stock was upgraded by Robert W. Baird & Co. to Outperform from Neutral, and raised its price target on the stock to $40 from $38.

Even with its move higher over the past week, the stock is still well below where it was trading in mid-February, so there is still plenty of room for the stock to trade higher should it report its 9th consecutive quarter of better than expected earnings.

KMX stock closed Wednesday’s trading session up 1.9% to $34.59, up $0.64.

Going into this morning’s earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see Apollo Group report earnings of $0.69 for its fiscal second quarter. Adjusted earnings were higher than estimates at $0.84 per share, but actual results showed a loss of $0.45 per share.

The primary reason why the company had such a big loss was due to a drop in new student enrollments.

Apollo is the parent company for Pheonix University, and it is working hard to attract new students to its program. In order to attract new students, the company has been allowing students to try out their programs for free before deciding if they want to join the program full time.

In addition to allowing students a trial period, Apollo is also investing heavily into marketing itself which is also weighing on the company’s bottom line. The amount that Apollo pays to put a new student into its program has doubled over the past year to $3,200 .

Looking ahead to its full year 2011 results, Apollo now expects to see net revenue in a range of $4.65 billion to $4.75 billion. Analysts have previous forecast full year revenues of $4.69 billion.

The stock is trading down 10.2% in premarket trading.