LinkedIn shares skyrocket

The professional-networking site was priced at $45 a shares, opened at $83, reached as high as $122.70, and finished the day at $92. That's a valuation of $9 billion, give or take, $5 billion more than the public offering estimate. Keep in mind that LinkedIn made a mere $15 million last year - and that insiders had valued the company internally at $23. Crazy? Well, sure, but it's just a taste of what's in store whenever Facebook decides to go public. It also could reflect renewed interest in tech shares, although there's considerable disagreement on what LinkedIn means for the overall market (or whether it presages some new bubble). From the WSJ:

LinkedIn is one of the best-known sites for career networking and recruitment, and its IPO launch provided investors with their first glimpse of what might lie ahead for other social Internet sites such as Facebook Inc. or Groupon Inc. Both companies, along with Twitter Inc. and Zynga Inc., have attracted a frenzy of attention from venture capitalists and well-connected individuals, who have been driving their valuations up in private financing rounds. Though none have registered to go public, hopes are running high that they will in 2011 or 2012.