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Last week before LinkedIn.com came public, I’d said that it would likely pop huge from the IPO pricing of $40ish and that it would eventually grow into even an $80 per share valuation. By the time it opened that morning and had spiked from the $45 pricing to over $120 intraday, I wrote that if you could borrow LNKD and shortsell it over $120 a share that it’d probably be a very good trade.
The stock fell back below $90 after that and has been trading in the low $90s and high $80s ever since. It’s now crept back up to $96 a share and I’ve been asked if it’s a short opportunity again now.
The short answer — no.
Why? Three main reasons:
1. $120 is much higher than $96, and the “easy money” part of that trade, unfortunately, played out the very first day it came public intraday when it was impossible to short or bet against the company in any way, really, and it’s never set us up for a good entry since.
2. You guys know that I think we are entering a bubble phase over the next couple years or so in much of tech, fueled in large part by the ability of these LinkedIn.com companies to bubble themselves too. In bubble times, it’s impossible to gauge how far even this stock could run for the short/mid-term.
3. The average wholesale rate to borrow LinkedIn was 86% Tuesday, Astec’s data show. This means that hedge funds seeking to sell the stock short may have had to pay as much as 181% on an annualized basis to borrow shares, according to the company’s estimates. LinkedIn is the fourth-most expensive stock in the U.S. to borrow at present, the same data show.
I often remind us to swing only at the good pitches that the market throws at us. LinkedIn.com isn’t a good long or a good short at all right now. Let’s focus on buying the companies that benefit from the IPO cycle and full-swinging tech cycle that its feeding. I’ve no interest in trading LNKD from either the long or short side while it’s at $96 a share on 5/25/2011.
I’m not making any trades today it looks like. And to be reminded of the idea that we sometimes need to just sit on our hands and wait patiently for the next right pitch is also, in addition to the actual trading ideas themselves, why you’re reading me.