(By Mayur Pahilajani - iStockAnalyst Writer)
New York, NY - Shares of Nike, Inc. (NYSE: NKE) soared by 8.08 percent or $4.79 to $64.06 at 9:42am ET in New York composite trading, which added to the overall rally on Wall Street, after the company posted better-than-expected earnings on early Thursday.

The world's biggest athletic-shoe maker said that its fiscal 2009 first quarter net profit surged on higher sales, rising by 17 percent. The revenue, which grew to $5.4 billion, compared to $4.7 billion for the same period last year, beat the market analysts' expectations for the quarter.

The firm said its net income decreased 10 percent to $510.5 million, compared to $569.7 million reported a year earlier, while earnings per share declined by 8 percent to $1.03, from $1.12 a share last year. Sales in the U.S. market increased by 8 percent, while its revenue jumped by 36 percent in the Asia-Pacific region. Sales in China grew over 50 percent.

The company also announced that it Board of Directors has approved a $5 billion program to repurchase shares of Nike’s Class B Common Stock over the period of four years. The company has been repurchasing shares up to $3 billion in the current quarter.

Mark Parker, president and CEO, said in a statement that NIKE has returned $5.5 billion to shareholders through the repurchase of more than 157 million shares over the past 10 years. "This new share repurchase program demonstrates our continued confidence in Nike’s long-term growth prospects and financial strength," he added. The stock of the company has traded between $51.50 and $70.60 over the last year.

While, Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) said the net income during its fiscal year 2009 second quarter that ended August 31 was at $21.1 million, or $0.10 per diluted share, compared with $18.2 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, in the year ago quarter.

While, the revenue for the quarter was $164.4 million, an rise of 29 percent from the year earlier during the same period and 5 percent from the prior quarter. The world's biggest seller of Linux software beat the expectations of $163.6 million by the market analysts on Wall Street.

The company's subscription revenue also increased to a double-digit growth compared to a year earlier report of fiscal second quarter, adding 24 percent to $135.7 million.