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DEVON ENERGY CORP., $67.50, symbol DVN on New York, has announced plans to sell its properties in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as its international assets. After taxes, the company expects the sales to generate between $4.5 billion and $7.5 billion. The properties that Devon is selling make up about 7% of the company’s proven reserves of 2.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent. But they are high-risk and costly prospects to develop, and consume over 30% of Devon’s spending. Their potential is huge, but they would take many years and billions of dollars more to develop. The sales will let Devon focus on its onshore North American properties. Apart from conventional production, these include shale oil in northern Texas and oil sands in Canada. The company also plans to cut its debt from $5.8 billion to as low as $2.5 billion. That’s just 8.3% of its $30.0-billion market cap....

AMAZON.COM $131.29 (Nasdaq symbol AMZN; SI Rating: Extra Risk) (206-266-1000; www.amazon.com; Shares outstanding: 433.0 million; Market cap: $56.8 billion) reported sharply higher results in the three months ended September 30, 2009. Revenue rose 27.8%, to $5.4 billion from $4.3 billion a year earlier. Earnings jumped 68.6%, to $199 million, or $0.46 a share, from $118 million, or $0.28 a share. That beat the $0.33 a share that analysts were expecting. Amazon’s North American media revenue rose 13% during the quarter. Overall media sales climbed 17%, to $2.9 billion. Revenue from electronics and other general merchandise jumped 44% to $2.4 billion. Revenue in the company’s “other” category, which includes Amazon’s web-services business, rose 25%, to $163 million. The company accounts for sales of its Kindle electronic-book reader in its electronics and general merchandise segment. It includes sales of Kindle books and other content in media sales....

RIOCAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST, $18.34, Toronto symbol REI.UN, announced its first expansion into the U.S. this week. The trust has formed a joint venture with Cedar Shopping Centers, Inc. (New York symbol CDR). Cedar owns shopping centres in northeastern and mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. The new joint venture will hold seven of Cedar’s malls in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. RioCan will own 80% of this new company. It will also receive common shares and warrants in Cedar. Exercising these warrants would give RioCan a 15% stake in Cedar....

AMAZON.COM INC., $118.49, symbol AMZN on Nasdaq, shot up 26.8% today after reporting sharply higher results in the latest quarter. In the three months ended September 30, 2009, Amazon’s revenue rose 27.8%, to $5.4 billion from $4.3 billion a year earlier. Earnings jumped 68.6%, to $199 million, or $0.46 a share, from $118 million, or $0.28 a share. That beat the $0.33 a share that analysts were expecting. Amazon’s North American media revenue rose 13% during the quarter. Overall media sales climbed 17%, to $2.9 billion. Revenue from electronics and other general merchandise jumped 44% to $2.4 billion. Revenue in the company’s “other” category, which includes Amazon’s web-services business, rose 25%, to $163 million....

AMAZON.COM INC., $95.96, symbol AMZN on Nasdaq, is now selling its Kindle e-book reader in over 100 countries. The reader will ship on October 19, and will cost $279 U.S. Canada has not yet been included in the expansion. That’s because Amazon has not reached a deal with a wireless carrier, such as BCE, Rogers or Telus. Kindle users can download files from Amazon’s Kindle store, which contains over 350,000 books. Most bestsellers and new releases are just $9.99 U.S. each. International users will pay an extra $1.99 U.S. Users can also download leading U.S. and international magazines and newspapers, as well as over 1,200 blogs....

MOODY’S CORP., $18.85, New York symbol MCO, fell nearly 20% this week on new allegations that the company deliberately inflated its ratings on mortgage-backed securities and other complex investments. Bond issuers pay fees to rating agencies like Moody’s to rate their bonds. Some investors have sued the company, accusing it of knowingly issuing higher ratings so it didn’t risk losing these fees. Moody’s has denied the allegations. The stock also came under pressure after billionaire investor Warren Buffett lowered his stake in the company to 16.6% from 20.4% last July. As well, a court recently rejected a long-standing defence used by rating agencies that their opinions are protected under free-speech rights....

INDIGO BOOKS & MUSIC INC. $12 (Toronto symbol IDG; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 24.5 million; Market cap: $294 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.3; SI Rating: Average) is Canada’s largest bookseller. Indigo operates 91 superstores under the Indigo, Chapters and World’s Biggest Bookstore brands. It also sells books online, and in smaller stores under the Coles, Indigo, Indigospirit, SmithBooks and The Book Company banners. In February, Indigo launched a new web site called shortcovers.com, which lets users download electronic books and magazines to their computers and mobile devices. Although e-books are still evolving, U.S.-based bookseller Amazon.com’s Kindle reader and devices from other companies, such as Sony, have spurred interest in them. As well, shortcovers will help Indigo compete if Amazon decides to bring the Kindle to Canada. Indigo’s losses in its first quarter, which ended June 27, 2009 rose to $0.09 a share from $0.05 a year earlier. That’s mainly because of the cost of launching shortcovers.com. As well, Indigo earns most of its money during the Christmas season, which falls in its third quarter. It typically earns little, or even posts losses, in the other quarters....

MCGRAW-HILL COMPANIES LTD. $32 (New York symbol MHP; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 314.8 million; Market cap: $10.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.6; WSSF Rating: Average) will make over 100 of its college textbooks available to users of the Kindle and Kindle DX electronic-book readers sold by online bookseller Amazon.com. That’s on top of the over 3,000 McGraw-Hill business, medical and technical titles that Amazon now sells through its Kindle store. This could become a significant market for McGraw-Hill. Students will probably prefer to carry a Kindle, which can hold the contents of hundreds of textbooks, instead of regular books. As well, e-books are cheaper to publish than textbooks. This would increase McGraw-Hill’s profit margins. McGraw-Hill is a buy.

Japan is heading into an election on August 30. Polls show the Democratic Party of Japan stands a good chance of defeating Prime Minister Taro Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party in the Japanese parliament’s lower house.

To spur economic activity, the Democratic Party of Japan plans to push for more aggressive stimulus spending, such as allowances for families with children, free public high-school education and cuts to the gasoline tax.

Government stimulus spending has already played a big role in the country’s recent turnaround. In the latest quarter, ended June 30, 2009, Japan’s economy posted an annualized growth rate of 3.7%. The turnaround comes after four quarters of steep contraction, and is one reason why investors are wondering if Japan is now a good place for offshore investing.

Under Prime Minister Aso, Japan’s government is spending 25 trillion yen ($284.6 billion Canadian) to help the economy grow. As in many other developed countries, this is taking the form of infrastructure spending, direct handouts to consumers and incentives for environmentally friendly products.

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AMAZON.COM $83 (Nasdaq symbol AMZN; SI Rating: Extra Risk) (206-266-1000; www.amazon.com; Shares outstanding: 431.8 million; Market cap: $35.8 billion) plans to buy privately held Zappos.com for $807 million in common stock. Zappos is an online seller of shoes, clothing and accessories. Zappos posted roughly $1 billion in sales last year (Amazon.com had $19.2 billion). Zappos was launched in 1999, and was one of the first companies to succeed in selling footwear on the Internet. It stocks a range of styles, and lets customers order and return multiple pairs without paying extra shipping. Zappos’s management will remain in place, and the company will still be headquartered in Las Vegas....