Sobriety has returned to the market for new Internet companies — at least for one day.
Shares of Pandora Media, a popular but unprofitable online music service, made their New York Stock Exchange debut on Wednesday, ending the day up 8.9 percent, at $17.42, after rising as high as $26.
It was a solid performance — all the more so because it came on a day of a broad slump in the overall stock market. Yet the Pandora initial public offering paled in comparison to recent incandescent Internet I.P.O.’s.
Last month, shares of LinkedIn, LNKD, the social network for professionals, more than doubled on their first day of trading. And just a few days later, Yandex — often described as the Google of Russia — climbed 55 percent on its market debut. Both stocks have since pulled back, but remain well above their offer prices.
Groupon, which was valued at roughly $1.4 billion last year, may seek a valuation of $30 billion with its I.P.O., according to two people close to the company who were not authorized to speak. The social shopping site posted a loss of $456 million last year on revenue of $713 million.