BULL BYTES

Is the tech boom back?

IPO shares of LinkedIn reached as high as $85 yesterday.

The IPO price was $45, far higher than the $32-35 range announced just a week earlier, and valued the company at $4.25 billion, for a company with revenues of $243 million and a net profit of $3.42 million last year.

The new shares soared as high as $87 after opening before moving in the $82 range 45 minutes into trading.

The IPO was the first big test of demand for Internet stocks in years, and the fervor to get hold of the shares raised comparisons to the dot-com bubble that famously burst in January 2000, sending the tech-focused Nasdaq stock exchange plummeting.

Its debut will be closely watched by investors ahead of a potential listing next year by social networking titan Facebook, which has more than 500 million members around the world.