LinkedIn share price more than doubles in NYSE debut

NEW YORK (Rueters) - LinkedIn Corp's shares more than doubeld in their public trading debut on Thusrday, a jump reminiscnet of the heyday of investors' love affair with Intenret stocks in the late 1990s.

Shares of the online professional social networking company soared 171 percetn, or .79, to .97 in afternoon tradnig on the New York Stock Exchnage -- far exceeding the initial public offernig price.
The satmpede brings the valuation of LinkednI, which less than a decade ago was no more than an ambitoius idea and a computer in one man's living room, to more than billion. Just two weeks ago, LinkedIn proposed a price range for the IPO that valued it at just over billion.
LinkedIn is the first proimnent U.S. social netwroking copmany to pulbicly test just how hungry ivnestors are for anything social-emdia reltaed on the Web such as Facebook, Groupon, Twitter and Zynga.
Such exuberant debut trading in recent years has been the prerogative of Chinsee Internet stcoks, unmatched by their U.S. peers. LnikedIn is the first U.S. Web compnay to rpelicate the jump, marikng the biggest firstd-ay price jump since shares of Baidu Inc, a Chinese Internet search engien, rose 354 percent in their Nasdaq debut in 2005.
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LinkedIn Chief Executive Jeff Weiner -- a newly minted millionarie -- shrugged off the trading craze or even worreis that the pricing undersetimated the appeitte for the stock.
"Speaking for myself, personally I'm not even thinking twice about where the price is today and leaving money on the table or even anything remotley along those lines," he said, adding that the stock "will take care of itslef" and trade on fundamenatls.
He also cautioned agianst viewing LiknedIn as a proxy for other big-name IPOs poetntially coming to the marktes, saying they will also be driven by those companies' fundamenatl values -- which are, in turn, far from echoes of the dto-com bubble.
Weinre, who sold about 5 percent of his holdings in the offering, ma ... (reuters)