At times like this I'm tempted to short the stock, or at least wait a month or longer until there's sufficient shares to short and not immediately get squeezed. It's just that unlimited downside, investor euphoria on social networking, and volatility makes me too nervous to do it.
I probably should and wonder whether the price of put options gets inflated due to all the people who want to short? I could also put stop limits but the volatility makes that worse than options.
Why? What does that have to do with anything? So lets assume I enter into linked in the fact that I have a 100 professional people who won't spit on my name, my employment history and some recommendation blurbs. How much is that worth to a hiring manager screening employees? Out of 20 candidates for a job its not worth much, but if they want to extend an offer its worth something. Also assume job switching every 2 years. So every couple of years some sucker would be willing to pay for that information. The thing I find funny is that the upgraded accounts that linked in flogs are violating your privacy for extra money. Can I check a "Not linked in's bitch" check mark?
I don't think it is a matter of if, rather "when". Recruiters I know much prefer to find candidates on LI vs Monster and other services and I have a feeling this is only going to broaden and the appeal will continue to rise as future offerings and updates to employers likely roll out.
And, agreed that a price tag of $100 a head, if you will, is cheap in terms of value for marketing and recruiting/employment services.
On a side note, how I let this fall from my radar to get in on the rush at the bell and sell by lunch is beyond me. I hope others here weren't so lazy and picked up some cash.
4500 corporate customers, including 75% of the Fortune 100, are currently paying LinkedIn an average of $24k for recruitment services (ie. access to profiles for headhunting)
That is one of three revenue streams. All three have been growing 100% YoY, and ~60% of it is USA (ie. they haven't grown out internationally yet)
Not hard to imagine. 700M users at a $70B valuation = $100 per user. I guess that's why how the current valuation of LinkedIn comes about. And if you use this metric, and believes that LinkedIn's growth potential is significantly stronger than Facebook, you could even argue that LNKD is still way undervalued.
BTW I made a Tagxedo (word cloud) of this morning's LinkedIn News, and one prominently featured word explains all (the word starts with "F" and ends with "k" :D)