Going into this afternoon’s quarterly report, analysts are expecting to see Amazon post earnings of $0.61 per share on revenues of $9.55 billion.

During the same period last year the company had earnings of $0.66 per share with earnings of $7.13 billion.

Why Amazon Earnings Are Important:

Since Amazon is the nation’s largest online retailer so it will give us a clearer indication of what to expect from the rest of the online retailers as they get ready to release their quarterly earnings.

Amazon will be reporting its earnings following the market close, and we will update the results as well as after hours trading reaction when it becomes available.

Going into this morning’s first quarter earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see State Street report earnings of $0.85 per share, but actual earnings came in above estimates at $0.88 per share.

During the same period last year the company had earnings of $0.75.

Revenues during the quarter were $2.36 billion, versus analyst estimates for $2.29 billion.

Assets under management rose 7.7% year over year to $2.1 trillion.

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.

As we noted yesterday in our CarMax earnings preview, analysts were expecting to see the company post fourth quarter earnings this morning of $0.38 per share. Earnings were higher than expected, at $).39 per share, marking the 9th straight quarter of analyst beating earnings for the company.

During the same period last year CarMax had earnings of $0.33 per share.

Revenues were also above estimates at $2.25 billion, versus analyst estimates for $21.8 billion.

Despite topping earnings and revenues estimates, the stock is trading sharply lower in today’s action. The reason the stock is selling off was a drop in gross margin during the quarter to 14.2% from a previous 14.5%.

Same store sales were up 12% during the period.

The stock is trading down 7.3% on the day to $32.06, down $2.53.

Shares of Caterpillar are up 4.5% on the day to $71.91, up $3.13 following better than expected results this morning before the market opened.

Analysts were forecasting $0.39 per share, and the company easily outpaced those estimates with a reported $0.50 per share.

Revenues were a bit shy of analyst estimates, but the stock is surging after it raised its forecast for full year 2010 to $2.50 to $3.25 a share, up from its previous forecast of $2.50 per share.

S&P boosted its price target on the stock to $80 a share, and maintained its Buy rating on the company.

The company noted that the global economy is definitely improving, and as a result construction has been rebounding. This helped pushed the overall market higher today, with the DOW up over 25 points in afternoon trading.

With hopes building that the economic recovery is on solid footing, Wall Street will be looking for Pier 1 earnings as an indicator of just how much money people are putting back into their homes.

For the quarter, analysts have forecast Pier 1 to report earnings of $0.31 per share. During the same period last year the company had a loss of $0.33 per share.

The DOW closed the day up 0.7%, NASDAQ up 0.8% and the S&P rose 0.5%.

Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings last night following the market close, and easily outpaced analyst estimates. Analysts had been expecting to see the company report 41 cents per share, but the actual report was much higher at 46 cents per share.

Retailer J.C. Penny (NYSE: JCP) reported third quarter earnings this morning that fell a penny short of analyst estimates, but fell in the upper range of the company’s earlier earnings forecast.

DIS stock traded up 4.8% on the day, while JCP gained 6.2% on the day.

Going into this afternoon’s earnings report, analysts had been expecting the company to post earnings of 41 cents per share. The company’s actual earnings came in higher, with a reported 47 cents per share.

For the same period last year the company had 40 cents in earnings.

Late day traders are pushing shares up 3% in after hours trading.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) rose to a new 52 week high today of $125.68 and ended the session up 5.2% to 124.6399. The company is still riding high on last week’s solid earnings report. The company was expected to show earnings of 33 cents per share, but came in with a reported 45 cents.

RadioShack (NYSE: RSH) soared after posting strong third quarter earnings this morning. The stock finished the day up 15.9% on solid third quarter earnings, during which it earned 30 cents per share.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) ended the day in the red, but traded up to a new 52 week high earlier in the session of $35.78. The stock closed the day down 0.5% at $34.80.

TJX Companies (NYSE: TJX) started the week off strong, rising to a new 52 week high today of $40.64. The stock is moving higher following a report from Barron’s last week which estimated the stock could easily see another 15% price jump.

The first time that the DOW rose above the 10,000 mark was all the way back in 1999, and at that time investors celebrated, and drank champagne, but this time it was not so much a reason to celebrate as a reason to relax a bit, as Wall Street continues to claw its way back from the lows set in March of this year.

It has been an impressive run for the DOW, which is now up 53% from the lows it set earlier this year. The market had a good day on the back of strong earnings from Intel Corp. (NYSE: INTC) and JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM).

A few stocks that hit new 52 week highs today include:

• Intel Corp (NYSE: INTC): The company hit a high of $21.27 and closed the day up 1.6% at $20.83. The company reported 33 cents per share, which was higher than the 28 cents that analysts had been expecting to see.
• JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM): JP Morgan hit a high of $47.47 on the day, and closed the session up 3.3% to $47.16, up $1.50. The company reported earnings of 82 cents per share for its third quarter, above analyst estimates for 52 cents a share.
• EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC): EMC set a new 52 week high today after the stock was upgraded this morning by Thomas Weisel to Overweight from Market Weight, and the broker raised its price target on the stock to $24 from $15. The stock hit a new high of $18.33 and closed today’s trading up 1.3% to $18.16, up $0.24.

Other big names hitting new highs today were Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Wyeth (NYSE: WYE), Merck (NYSE: MRK), and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS).