Blog Posts by Henry Blodget

After a decade in which almost no tech companies went public, the IPO market for hot tech startups is finally alive and well.

Professional social network LinkedIn went public a few weeks back in a spectacular debut. Even after a steady decline in the stock price since then, the company is still valued at around $7 billion, or more than 10X this year's expected revenues

Earlier this week, online radio pioneer Pandora went public. Despite immediately getting hammered with a "SELL" rating by analyst Rich Greenfield of BTIG, an independent firm, the stock is still trading above the expected offering range, valuing the company at more than $2 billion.

And other Internet companies like HomeAway, BankRate, Groupon, Zillow, and Yandex have gone public or have filed to go public.

Some have taken the surge of Internet IPOs as a sign of a "new tech bubble," but the truth is it's nothing of the sort. So far, most of the companies that have gone public are mature companies, with significant

European markets are rebounding today after French President Nicolas Sarkozy hinted at a deal to resolve the Greek debt crisis. Speaking after meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Sarkozy noted France and Germany stand together on a solution for Greece.

After several days of worries, this appears to have done the trick and turned the tide... for now.

However, the folks at Elliott Wave International rarely have a sunny outlook on life. This Daily Ticker guest, European analyst Brian Whitmer, is no exception.

In an interview conducted before this latest news, Whitmer gave his longer term outlook on the European debt crisis. As you can imagine, he thinks it won't end well. According to his analysis Europe is now entering the next phase of the bear market that first clobbered global stocks three years ago. Over the next 6 months, Whitmer thinks, the European debt crisis will spread from the "fringe"--Greece, Ireland, et al--to the "core" major European countries like France.

If you watch financial television, you'll hear frequently that "stocks are cheap."

The S&P 500, analyst after analyst will tell you, is trading at about 15 times this year's earnings (and even less on projected earnings), which is just below the long-term average.

So you may think that if you buy stocks today, you are getting a bargain.

But be careful!

NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini has seized the headlines again this morning, warning that a "perfect storm" of economic disasters may smash the global economy in 2013.

Roubini's perfect storm consists of four factors:

Corporate board members, financial advisers, and other professionals are bound by a principle called "fiduciary duty," in which they are required to act in the best interests of the clients or companies they are serving.

As an American citizen, I would think--or at least hope--that elected government representatives would be bound by a similar principle--that they would put the country's interests firsts, even if those interests conflicted with their personal desire to gain more power or get re-elected.

My colleague Dan Gross, however, who has covered Washington for two decades, thinks that this principle--if it ever existed--has been thrown out the window.

After five days of lying, Representative Anthony Weiner finally came clean in a tearful press conference yesterday. Yes, he said, he was the one who sent that lewd photo to a college student. Yes, the photo was of him.

Weiner then confessed to having many similar exchanges with other women over the years, including several in the year that he has been married.

Weiner said that he wasn't going to resign, and if he told the full truth yesterday, he might not have to. But already, there are indications that he might not have told the full truth, especially about not using "government resources" to carry on his sex chats.

(A Las Vegas blackjack dealer who says she sexted with Weiner says they also had phone sex -- when he was in his office. And a porn star reportedly says he emailed with her and told her to lie to the press.)

Whether or not Weiner survives these transgressions seems a less important question than asking why on earth an otherwise responsible adult could be so shockingly

Apple is holding its annual developer's conference in San Francisco today. And as is always the case whenever Apple prepares to announce anything, Apple fans are on the edge of their seats.

The big news thus far is that Steve Jobs will appear <http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-icloud-2011-5> . Jobs has been on medical leave since January, and given the deterioration of his health over the past couple of years, many people were concerned that he would never return. The fact that he has been seen on Apple's campus in recent weeks, and will appear again today, is great news, for Apple and the tech industry alike.

Apple will also announce something called "iCloud" which is the next generation of the company's Internet-based storage and synchronization service. This service will likely replace Apple's "Mobile Me," which got off to a rough start but has still accumulated 3 million subscribers. iCloud will also likely have facilitate Apple's next-generation of music and movie

Yesterday, bond rating agency Moody's threatened to downgrade the debt of the United States if Congress doesn't agree to increase the country's debt ceiling.

The drop-dead date for hiking the debt ceiling, which will prevent the U.S. government from borrowing more money to fund its enormous budget deficit, is August 2nd. If Congress hasn't raised the debt ceiling by then, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says, the U.S. will default on its debt and a catastrophe will ensue.

Moody's appears to agree -- a view that prompted its warning yesterday.