Yandex IPO: Russian Search Giant Adds to Internet Hysteria

Introducing Yandex (NASDAQ:YNDX), the premier search engine in Russia and eighth largest the world over. Yandex made its IPO on the NASDAQ (NASDAQ:NDAQ) this morning and is already up ~40%!

The Web stock has already turned heads of financial analysts and prospective investors by raising 1.3 Billion Dollars in its IPO, selling 52.2 M shares at $25 a pop. The price per share Yandex received at the initial public offering was an upward revision (!) of the top range of its projected initial valuations, giving the company a market capitalization of $8 Billion, or 60 times the firm’s reported net profit ($134 million) in 2010.

Though exuberant, Yandex’s IPO valuation is nowhere nearly as stunning as that of fellow Internet/Social Networking and Media corporation LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), which debuted on markets last week with its IPO at an incredible 275x last year’s earnings. LinkedIn share values more than doubled on their first two days on the market, finishing at over $100 by closing time on Friday. Although shares dropped roughly 15% in Monday’s trading the LinkedIn IPO was still nothing short of a remarkable.

LinkIn’s (NYSE:LNKD) explosive debut has garnered much attention and lead some to believe that demand for stakes in social media service providers and their “web 3.0″ counterparts is so high that it has birthed a new bubble in the market for internet stocks. Yandex (NASDAQ:YNDX) hopes to ride the expansive wave of this bubble today, and with companies like Facebook preparing to make IPOs in coming months, the market and its major players will be tuned in closely to see how the “Russian Google” fares.