Despite Strong Earnings, LinkedIn Shares Drop

Despite posting strong quarterly earnings on Thursday, LinkedIn saw its stock yo-yo downwards on Friday, at one point dropping down over 8 percent.

In its first earnings report since its IPO, LinkedIn assuaged investor fear by showing solid growth in its revenue stream.

The Mountain View-based company posted earnings of $4.5 million, or 4 cents per share, beating the average analyst estimate of a loss of 4 cents per share, according to FactSet. This report comes after LinkedIn saw its IPO price of $45 dollars more than double after a first day of trading.

Its revenue more than doubled from last year to $121 million, as membership numbers continued to steadily grow. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said in a Thursday conference call with analysts that the professional networking service is adding two members every second, culminating in a 61 percent boost in membership during the quarter.

"The IPO and attention certainly helped raise the company's profile and compounded the momentum we had already been seeing," LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said in a Thursday interview with CNBC.

The strong numbers were unable to keep it unscathed from the fallout of stocks falling across the board, though. The Dow Jones dropped over 500 points on Thursday, and even with a drop in the country's unemployment rate, it continued to fall on Friday.

As of 11:25 a.m. on Friday, LinkedIn was down 8.58 percent, to $87.41, while the Dow was down close to 120 points.

Earlier on Friday, it was announced that the unemployment rate dropped to 9.1 percent from 9.2 percent, and that the country added 117,000 non-farm jobs.

LinkedIn makes more than two-thirds of its revenue from fees that it charges for its professional networking services, including access to resumes and for companies to post job listings. Its hiring tools saw a 170 percent rise in profits.

The jobs report and unemployment rate could be tied to the future success of the company. On one hand if major companies continue to cut jobs instead of adding them, it could cut into LinkedIn's most valuable cash cow. On the other hand, if unemployment rates continue to stay high, more and more persons looking for work will head to LinkedIn to pursue job and networking opportunities.

The company is betting heavily that its product will benefit no matter where the economy is at, by willing to invest big and cut into its profit margin. LinkedIn saw its profit margin drop to 8.2 percent from 9.7 percent, as its expenses more than doubled.