After the bell on Thursday Amazon (AMZN  ) released their much anticipated earnings report for the third quarter. The company posted income of $252 million which equals out to $0.52 per share. This was up nicely as compared to last year where the company did only $79 million at $0.17 per share. This gain also represented the company's sixth straight profitable quarter. Unfortunately that's about the only good statistic we can provide you. See, the street was expecting Amazon to announce around $0.78 per share. A miss of a penny or two can be a disaster, so you can imagine a miss of this magnitude. Shares sold off over 5% after the close down to $772. This wipes out almost 2 months of gains for the eCommerce giant.

So whats the deal Amazon? 

The company not only missed forecasts but also provided a grim look for the holiday season. Amazon forecast sales of between $42 billion and $45.5 billion for the current quarter, which includes the all-important holiday shopping season. Well, that's a problem because that outlook trailed expectations of $44.58 billion. Amazon also forecast that operating income would range from nothing to $1.25 billion. Bottom line, they aren't sure what is going to happen in the next quarter and this was "corporate speak" for telling you this.

In addition to this forecast, their earnings report also revealed that total operating expenses rose 31.5 percent to $10.94 billion, including investments in Amazon Web Services and the Prime subscription program internationally. The Chief Financial Officer tried to calm investors by saying "There's a lot of hiring to support the projects we're investing in." Amazon said earlier this month it would hire more than 120,000 seasonal workers in the United States for the holiday season. This is an increase of 20 percent compared to last year, highlighting the growing threat the company poses to traditional retailers.

On the bright side:

Amazon said in July that customers placed 60 percent more orders worldwide in its second Prime Day sale. It did not provide sales figures though. The company also enjoyed growth in net sales. Last year was $25.36 billion. This year $32.71 billion. In addition the company noted that the have found consistent profit from computer storage and cloud based services.

Finally, Amazon's net sales in North America, its biggest market, jumped 25.8% to $18.87 billion in the latest quarter. So in the short term it seems Amazon will take a hit from this earnings season, but in the long run investors have decent growth to count on.