Valuation is still a worry here, but no gap filling will be going on here anytime soon it appears.

• Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN) quarterly net income doubled from a year ago and beat Wall Street targets, though much of the gain was related to the sale of European DVD rental assets, confusing some investors. The after-hours share weakness may have been a reaction to a $53 million non-cash gain from selling the European DVD rental assets, said analyst Dan Geiman at McAdams Wright Ragen.
• "You back out that one-time item and it was pretty much an in-line quarter," Geiman said.
• Amazon posted second-quarter net profit of $158 million, or 37 cents per share, compared with $78 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue in the quarter, which is seasonally the slowest, rose to $4.06 billion.
• Seattle-based Amazon, which has been lowering prices on many goods to spur purchases during the U.S. economic downturn, reported a rise in operating profit margin to 5.3 percent of total sales from 4.0 percent a year ago.
• North America segment sales, representing the company's U.S. and Canadian sites, were up 35% from a year ago to $2.17 billion. International sales, representing the company's U.K., German, Japanese, French and Chinese sites, were up 47% to $1.89 billion. Excluding the impact of foreign-exchange rates, international sales grew 34%. (Any company still growing US centric sales at pace with foreign sales - you have to tip your hat at least a little)
• "Given the state of the economy, this is a very impressive performance," said Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeff Lindsay. "But it is not quite as impressive as the initial figures might look."
• "The big issue for us is the margin guidance is really, really bad," said Tim Boyd of American Technology Research, who has a sell rating on the stock. "Basically we're back to the old Amazon. Anyone can grow their top line if they ignore margins." (boo yah - but you know investors in this day and age - they never get past the headline "beat" or "miss")

Both these stocks are too rich for me, but the former has far fewer headwinds so I'll justify it in the portfolio, although much like Apple (AAPL) I have a hard time building it into a major position simply due to valuation, and what I'd consider a cap on upside because of how expensive they are at current levels. Even with fantastic growth rates. But still worthy of holding in each case.

Granted neither is as good as Washington Mutual or Fannie Mae, but what do I know.

Long Baidu.com, Apple in fund; no personal position