Shares of LinkedIn (NYSE:
LNKD
), the social networking site for professionals, surged in
Thursday's after-hours after the company posted a third-quarter
profit of $2.3 million, or 2 cents a share, compared with a net
loss of $1.6 million, or 2 cents a share, a year earlier. On an
adjusted basis, the company earned 22 cents per share, doubling
the consensus estimate.
More importantly, LinkedIn boosted its full-year revenue
guidance to $939 million to $944 million from $915 million to
$925 million. The bullish outlook had the stock trading over $115
in Thursday's after-hours session, within spitting distance of
its all-time high at $125.50.
While LinkedIn can be considered a social media stock, and a
far successful one to this point than Facebook (NASDAQ:
FB
),
the latter is more discussed in reference to ETFs
than the former
.
Facebook is starting to appear in more ETFs, but LinkedIn is
only a prominent of two, maybe three funds. One of which is the
First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund (NYSE:
FDN
). With $486.5 million in assets under management, FDN is the
largest ETF by assets to offer decent exposure to Facebook and
LinkedIn.
With a weight of 2.77 percent, LinkedIn is FDN's
thirteenth-largest holding, ranking just behind Netflix (NASDAQ:
NFLX
) and just ahead of Expedia (NASDAQ:
EXPE
).
One ETF with a larger allocation to LinkedIn is the overlooked
SPDR Morgan Stanley Technology ETF (NYSE:
MTK
). MTK is over 12-years-old and has more than $157 million in
AUM, but hardly anyone talks about this ETF. Odd considering it
is up 11 percent this year. Since MTK debuted in 2000, it has
outperformed the far larger Technology Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:
XLK
) by about 500 basis points.
LinkedIn is MTK's second-largest holding behind only Seagate
Technology (NASDAQ:
STX
). To put LinkedIn's importance to MTK into perspective, as of
Wednesday, the stock received a higher allocation in this ETF
than Amazon (NASDAQ:
AMZN
), Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL
) and eBay (NASDAQ:
EBAY
), just to name a few.
The ETF where Linked really gets some attention is also the
first ETF to have made room for Facebook, the Global X Social
Media Index ETF (NYSE:
SOCL
). LinkedIn is SOCL's largest holding with a weight of nearly 12
percent, meaning the stock accounts for nearly double the weight
in SOCL than Facebook does.
And it has been LinkedIn, not Facebook that has been setting
the pace of SOCL in recent months. Over the past 90 days, the
stock is 11.7 percent while SOCL is up 5.7 percent. Facebook is
up just 1.6 percent over the same time.
For more on social media stocks and ETFs, click
here
.
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