Daily Reading – Friday, May 20, 2011
FT Alphaville: Competition time! LinkedIn valuation edition
Trading between $83 and $92.99 at pixel time…
Up to 107 per cent above the IPO price…
569 times 2010 earnings:*
In a matter of minutes since the New York open, post-IPO shares in LinkedIn have pretty much trashed all the millions of pixels spilt on its “true” valuation during the last few days.
FT Alphaville: Silver and short covering – a theory
Now, on Friday, Pragmatic Capitalism has a post explaining why the CFTC’s committment of traders report possibly proves it was indeed short covering which was responsible for the rise, rather than an influx of new ‘weak’ money into the commodity.
FT Alphaville: Japan’s ‘temporary’ recession?
The news from Japan on Thursday reinforced some of the worst fears about the state of the economy, but not everyone is gloomy — far from it — although the latest growth figures are truly horrible.
FT BeyondBRICs: China sets new standard in gold
As Jack Farchy reports in Friday’s FT, China has overtaken India to become the largest market for gold bars and coins during the first quarter of this year.
The Big Picture: First Day IPO Pops
In light of today’s LinkedIn (LNKD) double, I want to refer you to this spectacular act of research by Prof. Jay R. Ritter of the University of Florida, who reviewed the initial public offerings (IPOs) of common stock ( >$5.00 and proceeds >$5 million) of all non-ADR operating companies during 1975-2004 that at least doubled in price on the first day of trading.
The Big Picture: Understandings Earnings Estimates
The transcript cannot convey the frustration in Apotheker’s voice when he was accused of missing expectations for the current quarter. He can understand the stock falling, he can understand the outlook being poor, but do not accuse him of missing on the quarter. Apotheker stressed this point multiple times.
Gawker: Jon Stewart Takes Down Ben Stein’s Defense of Dominique Strauss-Kahn
On Wednesday, monotonous economist and former actor/game show host Ben Stein came to the defense of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF chief currently facing sex assault charges. So just how preposterous were Stein’s arguments? Very, as Jon Stewart made clear on tonight’s Daily Show.