20 May 2011

Such irrational exuberance

We've been here before. The Guardian reports:

LinkedIn, the first major US social network to go public, saw its shares more than double as they debuted on the New York Stock Exchange to a bidding frenzy from investors.

It makes Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn's founder and largest shareholder, a billionaire and comes as larger social network firms including Facebook and Groupon are lining up floats. The rise in shares is likely to drive up the prices of those sales too.

LinkedIn shares had been priced at $45 (£27.73) before the flotation and shot up as high as $122 at one point and ended the first day of trading at $94.25. The company is now valued at more than $10bn, a huge increase for a firm that was recently valued at about $2.5bn.

Time to take the punch bowl away?


1 comment:

Build A Home Brewery said...

Congrats to LinkedIn. A very powerful network. Hopefully this successful IPO after 2 whole days is a sign of pent up demand for technology, internet and cloud co's on the public markets. Go LinkedIn.