Amazon profit crushes estimates as cloud-service revenue soars

Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) on Thursday reported profit and revenue that blew past analysts' expectations, sending its shares soaring in after-hours trading and demonstrating the growing market power of its core retail business and new cloud services division.

Asian shares rise, taking cue from Wall Street

Asian share markets rose to five-month highs on Tuesday, taking their cue from gains on Wall Street after a strike in Kuwait helped pull crude oil prices above their prior-session lows.

A businessman is reflected in an electronic board

displaying Japan's Nikkei share average outside a

 brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, April 18, 2016.

REUTERS/TORU HANAI

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was up 0.7 percent, after touching its highest intraday levels since November. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI climbed to its highest level since July overnight.

Crude prices dip as global glut outweighs Kuwait oil strike

Crude futures slipped on Tuesday on a persistent global glut and the failure of a producer meeting at the weekend to rein in the ballooning oversupply, although a sharp drop in output in Kuwait due to an oil worker strike underpinned prices briefly.

A pump jack is seen near sunflowers in Guthrie, Oklahoma

in a September 15, 2015 file photo.

REUTERS/NICK OXFORD/FILES

Kuwait's output has dropped to 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) from 2.8 million bpd due to the worker strike. However, analysts expect the disruption to be brief and markets to soon refocus on the global glut given the failure of major exporters to agree on an output freeze at their Sunday meet.

Asian shares soft as data casts shadow over global economy

Asian share prices won some reprieve on Wednesday after a sharp fall in the previous session, but gains were modest as soft economic data from the United States and Europe cast a shadow on the global economic outlook.

A man walks past an electronic board displaying the Nikkei average
outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, April 1, 2016.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was up 0.1 percent in the early trade, a day after it fell 1.6 percent, its biggest fall in almost two months.

Japan's Nikkei .N225 was flat after Tuesday's 2.4 percent fall.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 1.01 percent on Tuesday as investors took profits on recent gains ahead of a quarterly reporting season that is expected to reveal sharply lower earnings.

Asian shares slide, frazzled by Fed, falling oil prices

Asian shares and other riskier assets skidded on Tuesday, pressured by slumping crude oil prices and mixed messages from Federal Reserve policymakers on the outlook for U.S. interest rate rises.

Men walk past an electronic board showing market indices outside
a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, March 2, 2016

Oil prices continued to drop after shedding more than 2 percent overnight, as investors doubted that oil producing countries would freeze output to address a global glut.

Brent lost 0.6 percent to $37.48 a barrel after losing 2.5 percent on Monday. U.S. crude lost nearly 3 percent overnight, and on Tuesday was down about 0.8 percent at $35.40.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 1.3 percent. Japan's Nikkei stock index dropped 2.1 percent to six-week lows, as the perceived safe-haven yen rallied.