Shares of e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) are trading lower in after hours trading despite posting better than expected earnings this afternoon for its fourth quarter.

Going into this afternoon's earnings release, analysts were expecting to see Amazon show earnings of 72 cents per share, on revenues of $9.04 billion in revenues.

Tomorrow we are not going to see people landing on Mars, or North and South Korea unite, or the end of poverty and disease. However, the long awaited Apple (AAPL) tablet computer will be unveiled and from all the excitement it has generated it might even be bigger news than that.

It seems everyone is anticipating that Apple's latest device will have the ability to balance the federal budget and eliminate the deficit. After all the hype anything less may disappoint.

In his High-Income Alert financial newsletter, Mark Skousen recommends Barnes & Noble (BKS), noting, "Barnes & Noble has almost 800 stores in 50 states. It also owns one of the Web's most-visited Web sites.

The advisor suggests, "The stock has attracted heavy insider buying. In our view, this looks like a superb contrarian buy right now."

A rally that began last year has already run up the prices of some stocks, creating small bubbles across the market. Some investors might be pushing prices higher ahead of their time for 62 of the stocks in the S&P 500 index. These companies now have P/E ratios of above 70, up from 23 a year ago. Says Robert Maltbie of Singular Research, "We have to temper some of this crazy bullishness." He tells USA Today that when P/E ratios approach 70, a stock can begin to have problems.

So, why are some prices being run up? As usual, any hope of rational price drivers is the domain of dreamers. Investors have found their favorites and sometimes haven't allowed reality to become a constraint on their excitement. Take a look at five reasons below:

Looking back on what became a tough end to a tough year for the retail sector, the one bright spot was the online sector. Shoppers whipped out their plastic at a record rate on Black Friday, a trend that continued throughout the season.

The Amazon (AMZN) Kindle killed the competition, reinforcing the status of the online channel as the future of the retail business. Social media, in particular, had its first real test this year, as many companies -- including Best Buy (BBY), JCPenney (JCP) and Target (TGT) -- used the likes of Twitter and Facebook to engage customers, publicize sales and generally increase revenue. The next stage in the evolution, of course, is to use shopping behavior to trigger viral results.

For a company that hasn't even admitted to a new product, expectations are awfully high. The word is out that Apple (AAPL) will be unveiling a tablet computer at a major product launch this month.

Former Google (GOOG) exec Lee Kai-fu put out on his blog that he knows its coming, citing an anonymous source, and that the device would sell for less than $1,000. It's going to have a 10.1-inch screen and three-dimensional graphics, he continued, according to a Bloomberg News report, saying it would look like a large iPhone.

In the current doom and gloom environment, it's hard to think that growth will ever come back. Well, for those who feel this way, they may want to take a look at a massive report from Morgan Stanley's (MS) Mary Meeker. Yes, she was the same person who penned the highly influential "The Internet Report" in 1995, which became the bible for the dot-com revolution.

In her latest report -- which is 424 pages -- Meeker says that the "mobile Internet" is the next big thing. Within the next five years, she thinks that more users will access the Net from mobile devices than desktops. Some of the main drivers include 3G and 4G broadband networks, VOIP, online video and even social networking. What's more, the mobile Internet will go beyond just smartphones but be used in cars, manufacturing systems and so on.

Might Amazon.com's (AMZN) Kindle be as game-changing as the Gutenberg press in the 1440s? Perhaps so. The Kindle is certainly getting lots of traction. More importantly, authors are getting excited about the money-making possibilities.

Just look at Stephen Covey, who is a top management guru and author. He has agreed to provide the exclusive e-book rights to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle-Centered Leadership to the Kindle (through a deal involving RosettaBooks). The contract will last for one year.

It's usually tough finding the right gift for an entrepreneur. Hey, the best thing would probably be a loan or some customers, right?

OK, being realistic, there are some gifts to consider. Let's take a look:

The Cloud: It's all the rage right now -- that is, on-demand software services. The good news is that much of it is affordable. Take a look at Salesforce.com (CRM). The company has a small business edition of its customer relationship management (CRM) offering that comes to only $50 per year.

Want that brand-new Stephen King or Anita Shreve novel beamed to your Amazon (AMZN) Kindle? Well, you may be waiting a few months. In a preemptive strike against e-reader technology, publishers Simon & Schuster - part of CBS Corp. (CBS) and Hachette plan to delay the electronic-book editions of about 35 popular titles by four months. The supposed strategy is that desperate readers will pay the full retail price for these volumes, rather than the discounted $9.95 for the electronic version.

E-readers are a hot gift item this holiday season, and products like the Kindle and the soon-to-be-released Nook from Barnes & Noble (BKS) don't seem to be a flash in the pan. E-book retail sales are expected to hit $201 million in 2010, up from $150 million this year. While this is still a fraction of actual, tangible book sales, the growth rate cannot be ignored.

Five of the largest companies in the print business are testing the digital waters together. Rather than yield their content to alien formats, Time Inc. (TWX), News Corp. (NWS), Conde Nast, Hearst and Meredith Corp. have announced plans to develop a digital content format of their own. This new product would compete with the newly released Nook from Barnes & Noble (BKS), as well as one from Sony (SNE) and the industry-leading Kindle from Amazon (AMZN). The new e-reader content will come in color and in a format that would work across several devices.

The five media companies are equal partners in this joint venture, which will allow publishers to set their own prices for their content -- an obvious response to what they see as unfavorable revenue share deals offered by Amazon earlier this year. Rupert Murdoch has been particularly vocal on this issue, particularly about the fact that News Corp. only receives a little more than a third of the $14.99 a month it costs to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal on a Kindle. He says of the device that it's "a fantastic invention for reading books. It is not much of an experience for newspapers."

Black Friday's online sales were up 35% year over year, and early reports for Cyber Monday put the gain at 19.6%. Amazon (AMZN), as an online pure-play, has felt a lift from both these factors, but its execution in the e-reader category can't be ignored. While Sony (SNE) and Barnes & Noble (BKS) have already sold out of their respective devices, effectively taking them out of the game until early next year, Amazon's Kindle continues to fly off the shelves.

So, what's the prize for effective forecasting and a supply chain that can delivery on it? A new record!

Amazon had its best Kindle month yet in 2009, though it wouldn't reveal how many of the devices it has moved or the revenue it's pulled in from these sales. All it would say is that some buyers were buying more than one Kindle at a time, and businesses and organizations were picking them up in volume for employees or clients.

The next month is the one that matters most to the retail sector. It will dominate the conversation when Q4 and full-year financials are reported. A strong Black Friday brought with it concerns that momentum will fade, but opportunity is not dispensed equally. Some retailers will come through the season better than others, and industry experts have already chosen their favorites.

Michael Dart, senior partner at Kurt Salmon Associates, says, "We are seeing a paradigm shift in the way consumer interprets value and what they are looking for." The winners will do more than pitch deep discounts to convince consumers to part with their hard-earned cash.

Online retail sales are expected to increase 3% to $28.8 billion for this year's holiday season. The analysts at comScore include traditional retailers, like Macy's (M) in this estimate, but don't count auction sites like eBay (EBAY), travel or corporate sales. The estimate compares favorably against the National Retail Federation's forecast of a 1% year-over-year drop for all retail sales and exceeds the industry's most aggressive holiday season sales estimates of 2%.

Last year, online retail sales fell 3% for the holiday season, the first decline since the industry started keeping score in 2001. Even if we don't hit the 3% growth level this year, 2009 is still expected to be better than 2008, now that the economy has stabilized (at least relative to last year).

Take the Nook off your Christmas list. The new e-reader from Barnes & Noble (BKS) has already sold out, and more won't be available until after the holiday has passed. The next batch will be available, at best, by January 4, 2010.

In a statement, the company said, "While we increased production based on the high consumer interest, we've sold out of our initial Nook allotment available for delivery before the holidays." If you still want to give the device as a holiday gift, Barnes & Noble will give you a gift certificate to tide the recipient over until the device itself comes around.