LinkedIn风光背后现隐忧

    所以，较弱的营收指南更多地是向华尔街虚晃一枪，而并不是为了起到预警作用。毕竟，LinkedIn正在转向全新的广告营收模式，例如赞助动态——在LinkedIn的新闻源中插入广告，许多广告主表示这个模式的点击比是展示广告等传统模式的五倍以上。

    不过，发布低于预期的投资指南存在不少风险。其一是，连续多年祭出这招后，投资者都已经心知肚明了。因此，正如我们所见，LinkedIn发布财报后，它的股价出现反弹，可见市场对其给出的较弱营收预期根本不以为然。这种花招已失去作用了。不管你示弱还是高调，大家每个季度都会期待你创造奇迹。

    英特尔（Intel）和微软（Microsoft）也曾经是个中好手。Ebay在辉煌时期也曾玩得游刃有余。更近的例子则要数苹果公司（Apple）。在iPhone和iPad的增长超出几乎所有人预期的那几年，苹果一直在玩这个把戏。后来，上述所有公司的增长都开始降温。增长并没有消失，甚至没有显著放缓，只是没法达到人们过高的预期。说来也奇怪，上述公司将收入指引定得较低反倒推高了市场对其业绩的预期。

    投资者出高价购买LinkedIn的股票本质上是看好它新的增长领域。因此，新的增长点对于LinkedIn的股价的前景特别重要。LinkedIn将赞助快讯（Sponsored Updates）称为“一种更可持续、可伸缩的内容营销模式”。LinkedIn正试图成为人们分享同自身职业生涯相关的新闻与信息的平台，用以补充原本依赖求职的商业模式。上季度，LinkedIn广告驱动的营销解决方案部门收入在公司收入中占比达到24％，较之两年前的33％有所下降。

    即使LinkedIn新闻源的广告增多，同时LinkedIn正在进军海外市场，同时对知名作家开放自身平台，仍然难以证明多头投资者对这家公司增长前景的乐观理所应当。眼下，LinkedIn的股价是其每股预期收益的17倍，是其2013年每股盈利的150倍。它真实的市盈率为106。这就是说，即使Linked的股价在今后一年半不再上涨，它的股价仍将是目前每股盈利的100倍。

    这就是成功的悖论：有时候，公司表现太好，以至于人们对它产生了不现实的期望。LinkedIn可能就面临这样的境况。它上佳的表现导致人们对它期望极高，这也反映在其高企的股价上。然而，历史告诉我们，期望越高，最后失望往往越大。（财富中文网）

    译者：项航  

    So the weak revenue guidance was seen as one more attempt to lowball Wall Street's expectations rather than a warning. After all, LinkedIn was transitioning to new ad-revenue models like Sponsored Updates, ads inserted into the LinkedIn feed that some advertisers said generated five times as many leads as banner ads and other paid channels.

    There are, however, a couple of risks involved with the game of guiding investor expectations low. One is that after a couple of years of this people begin to expect it of you. As we saw in the post-earnings rally of LinkedIn shares, the market shrugged off disappointing guidance for this very reason. The trick begins to lose its impact. Great things are expected of you each quarter, whether you downplay them or not.

    Once, Intel (INTC) and Microsoft (MSFT) were very good at this game. Ebay (EBAY), in its glory days, was too. More recently, Apple (AAPL) played it during the years when the iPhone and iPad were delivering growth that exceeded almost everyone's expectations. Then, in all of those companies, the growth began to cool. Not disappear or even slow significantly, but simply to not meet the heightened expectations that the low-guidance game had perversely created in the market.

    New growth areas are what investors are essentially betting on when they bid LinkedIn shares higher. That's what makes them especially crucial to the future of LinkedIn's stock. LinkedIncalled Sponsored Updates "a more sustainable and scalable content marketing model." The company is trying to supplement a business model dependent on job searches to also become a site where people share news and information of interest to their work lives. LinkedIn's ad-driven marketing solutions unit made up 24% of revenue last quarter, down from 33% two years earlier.

    Even with more ads in LinkedIn feeds, with LinkedIn pushing into overseas markets and with it opening up its platform to well-known writers, it's hard to justify the optimism bulls have about the company's growth prospects. The stock is trading at 17 times its estimated revenue and 150 times its earnings for 2013. It's trading at 106 times earnings. Which means that even if Linked stayed flat for a year and a half, it would still be priced at 100 times its current profit.

    It's a paradox of success: Sometimes companies do so well their expectations can become hard to meet. It may be that's starting to be the case with LinkedIn. Good word about the company has priced the stock for perfection. As history has shown, priced to perfection often means, in time, priced to disappoint.