Posted: 29 Nov 2011 01:07 PM PST

Just to be fair-minded about Microsoft, some upbeat news. The latest Appcelerator data shows an uptick in developer interest in the Microsoft mobile platform. It makes Microsoft a clear #3 in the market, and that is a material break in the market as RIM falls back.

Msft

Twitter Digest: 2011-11-29

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 12:00 PM PST

This is stuck in my head. (Yes, I saw Muppets movie over weekend.) http://t.co/s6Ol3oBQ #
Toyota becomes a cautionary tale, but are the other manufacturers paying attention? http://t.co/jX211H69 #
Bear Grylls on BBC Desert Island Discs http://t.co/dPASgPhA #
Nominations now open for @KauffmanFDN Junior Faculty Fellowship in Entrepreneurship Research grants #KJFF http://t.co/6pqL1b0j #
Canada ruling the powder snow sweepstakes http://t.co/G5KYxasi #
GRPN continues to set post-IPO records for Largest IPO, Biggest Fall. Off another 9% today. Congrats, guys. #
A digital photo tweak-edness score. Nifty. http://t.co/JvDMBMz5 #
Newsflash: Facebook still planning to go public in 2012. In other news, g = 9.81 m/s^2. #
What! RT @SconsetCapital: @pkedrosky This Just In: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. #
People from Eastern Ontario have more words for freezing rain variants than Inuit do for snow. Really. #
Speaking as someone who has zero interest in talking about a pending Facebook IPO, what say we petition them not to? #
Excellent RT @PattyEdwards: @pkedrosky We could start a Facebook Fan Page for those who don't want them to IPO!!! #
Excellent news: We now have a Facebook page for People Against Facebook IPO – http://t.co/Q40jAqWn /thx @ddn /cc @bloombergtv @cnbc #
That food allergy treatment's last best hopes now center on a Chinese herbal formula & a parasitic worm speaks volumes. http://t.co/Yg61nnSI #
I'm sure this was perfectly safe: iPhone self-combusts on airliner http://t.co/KQIyZnxk /via edward_tenner /cc @nickbilton #
Apparently Marc lost a bet: Netscape founder Andreessen considering Yahoo leadership role as part of bid – http://t.co/fDPItRsX #
Elderly Canadian ex-pro football players don't lack passion for … something – http://t.co/HpsfHSxq /via @StockJockey #
Photo set: Protesters Disrupt German Nuclear Waste Shipment – http://t.co/yCJpjedU #
To re-juice my iPhone battery , I have disabled Location services, iCloud, push, etc. Now have shiny StarTac with decent battery life. #
Nifty infographic showing U.S. Thanksgiving travels via 4squ checkins – http://t.co/AaYcrK0G #
Anyone got http://t.co/ATaLXl4T? RT @TechCrunch: WeedMaps Acquires http://t.co/qxUkwbCd For A Kushy $4.20 Million http://t.co/0L52gvvK #
Great pic RT @parand: For those who are curious, this is what Tehran looks like: http://t.co/5DKG9Htg #
Hard-earned VC skepticism from an engineer – http://t.co/ICvcNbWD /via @lawrencekslive #

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The Trouble with Linkedin

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 11:11 AM PST

The post-lockup schmeissing of the Linkedin IPO continues apace today, as the following figure shows:

Lnkd

While many stocks are weak once employees are free to sell shares after an IPO, this is much worse than usual. Why? Well, one good reason is that the stock was broken from the get-go — it had no institutional support, in large part because of the small float, but also, arguably, because of the pricing.

The institutional ownership of LNKD was 12% of the public float post IPO, which is basement stuff. Look at the following graph showing institutional ownership in U.S. IPOs over time:

Ipo owners

As the above figure shows, LNKD’s 12% post-IPO institutional ownership puts it in the outer regions of the distribution. And that matters, because institutional investors provide a more stable, non-trading base for offerings, as well as, generally, paying more attention to whether a company is solid.

Not surprisingly, you can see the upshot in the performance numbers. Companies with strong institutional support — greater than 25% — tend to dramatically outperform those with less support. (This table and the preceding graph are from Field & Lowry, Institutional versus Individual Investment in IPOs: The Importance of Firm Fundamentals, JFQA, 44/3. 2009).

Ipos

The upshot of all of this is that we are in a large-scale transition in the ecosystem that is shareholders of Linkedin stock. Retail investors are selling en masse, and institutional investors are neither holders nor picking up all the pieces. As a result, the stock continues its slide, one that will be arrested, but not quickly. [-]