*By Mike Teich*
Amazon shares jumped nearly 4 percent Friday after the e-commerce juggernaut delivered blockbuster earnings results on Thursday.
The tech giant impressed investors by delivering operating profit of $1.9 billion. Amazon's blockbuster numbers reflected its success in retail sales and growth in its cloud services business, said Michael Pachter, an analyst from Wedbush Securities.
Amazon also announced that it would be raising its Prime membership fee by $20, up to $119 a year. Pachter said the "odds are less than 1 percent that there is a decline in membership" as a result of the price hike.
Pachter compared Amazon Prime's cost to Netflix, noting that Prime was priced below Amazon's video-streaming rival and offers content that is "75 percent as good."
JetBlue says it will end a partnership with American Airlines in the Northeast after losing a court fight over the deal, and will instead focus on salvaging its proposed purchase of Spirit Airlines.
Meta has unveiled an app called Threads to rival Twitter, targeting users looking for an alternative to the social media platform owned — and frequently changed — by Elon Musk.
Contract negotiations between UPS and the union representing 340,000 of the company's workers broke down early Wednesday with each side blaming the other for walking away from talks.
