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A sell-off is erasing all of the year’s gains in the stock market.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 lost 2.6 percent Tuesday as investors grew increasingly concerned about the economy. The benchmark index is now at its lowest point of the year.

A report that consumers cut their spending in June for the first time in two years added to a series of weak economic indicators have pushed stocks lower for seven straight days.

The S&P is closing down 33 points to 1,254 payday loans. The Dow Jones industrial average is down 266, or 2.2 percent, to 11,867. The Nasdaq is down 75, or 2.8 percent, to 2,669.

Four stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was higher than average at 5.3 billion shares.

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Here’s something to sink your teeth into: discounted rates for dental work.

That’s the promise of Brighter.com, a new Santa Monica, Calif.-based online company that offers discounts of up to 60 percent off everything from root canals to teeth whitening. Even your kid’s braces.

Launched in May, it’s aimed at giving consumers more choices when choosing

The debt crisis shook Europe’s core on Tuesday as market fears grew over the stability of Spain and Italy, forcing a rethink of the currency union’s strategy to restore trust in its future.

Markets took a nosedive on worries that the eurozone’s third and fourth biggest economies _ both too expensive to save with Europe’s rescue funds _ may become the crisis’ next victims.

On the one hand, investors are concerned by the EU’s determination to get banks to share the burden of bailouts, even at the cost of triggering a Greek default. On the other, they see in EU disagreements over giving Greece more aid the ominous signs of a drop in commitment to the currency union.

The mix of uncertainty proved toxic for markets. The sell-off extended to Italy, one of Europe’s stable core economies, which despite its high debt had so far escaped the turmoil that has crippled the eurozone for a year and a half.

The contagion “could mark the beginning of the end for the single currency union in its current form,” Jonathan Loynes, economist at Capital Economics.

As so often before, the eurozone finance ministers were pushed into action only when the markets gave them no choice.

Italy’s government sped up approval of its austerity plan and the EU opened the door for a complete overhaul of the region’s bailout fund, which has so far focused on handing out rescue loans to countries on the brink of collapse in return for high interest rates and painful austerity measures.

The pledges calmed market nerves _ for the day, at least. The euro bounced back above $1.40 from as low as $1.3885 in the morning and Milan’s stock index swung to a 1.2 percent gain after being down as much as 4.4 percent.

“We said we are ready to test, whether, as part of the private sector involvement, an expansion of the toolkit is necessary and appropriate _ such as prolonging (loan) maturities and lowering interest rates,” said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. “Everything can help to improve debt sustainability and defend the euro as a whole.”

Schaeuble did not exclude new powers for the eurozone’s rescue funds, such as buying up the bonds of troubled countries on the open market, which could lower the debt weight and help stem market jitters, especially for a country like Greece, which few economists believe can stand on its own feet again without substantial additional support.

Until very recently, Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy and the biggest contributor to the region’s bailout fund, had firmly ruled out such expanded powers.

Schaeuble indicated that the heightened market panic may have led to a change in opinion. “We never before had such an intensive and honest debate over the real issues,” he told journalists at the end of a two-day meeting with his counterparts in Brussels Business Card Holders.

But while the promises of more support stabilized European markets by the close of the day on Tuesday, sentiment remains fragile as the eurozone’s top officials _ once again _ remained thin on details and appeared to disagree among themselves.

Calm will return to markets only if “all the countries of the eurozone assume their responsibility, in particular the most powerful countries,” Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told reporters in Madrid.

The comment seemed to be a direct rebuke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose reluctance to anger taxpayers at home has blocked previous efforts to get ahead of the debt crisis.

Because of the heightened tensions, this week could become crucial to the eurozone’s ability to survive the crisis. EU President Herman Van Rompuy said there may be a special summit of EU leaders in Brussels Friday, the same day as the results of long anticipated bank stress test will be revealed.

While the finance ministers struggled in Brussels, Italy worked to restore confidence in its ability to tackle its debt pile, some 120 percent of economic output and one of the biggest in the eurozone.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said the government will bring forward the timetable it has for a raft of austerity measures, which are now meant to pass through parliament by Sunday, instead of waiting until August.

Berlusconi said in a statement that the turmoil in Italian financial markets in recent days has prompted the government to accelerate and strengthen the measures, so that the country can have a balanced budget by 2014.

“It is necessary to eliminate every doubt on the efficiency and credibility of the austerity measures,” Berlusconi said in his first public comments since speculators started pushing up the interest rates Italy pays on its debt.

Berlusconi, who has been weakened in recent local elections and referendums on his policies as well as a sex scandal, expressed confidence that the government and opposition would work together “to defend the country.”

The comments helped the Italian 10-year yield drop back down to 5.55 percent from above 6.0 percent earlier, while the Milan stock index turned positive to trade 1.2 percent higher _ its first rise in days.

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Barry reported from Milan. David McHugh in Brussels, Maria Grazia Murru in Rome and Daniel Woolls in Madrid contributed to this story.

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Swiss specialty chemicals and biotechnology company Lonza Group Ltd. says it will buy Arch Chemicals Inc., a maker of antibacterial products, for $1.2 billion in cash.

The deal values the Norwalk, Conn., company at $47.20 per share. Lonza says it will start a tender offer for Arch Chemicals shares by Friday, and it expects to complete the acquisition later in 2011.

Lonza said it will have about $1.6 billion in annual revenue from sales of bacteria-killing products, making it one of the leaders in that market short term personal loans. It said Arch Chemicals reported $1.2 billion in sales of those products in 2010, and $1.4 billion in total revenue.

Shares of Arch Chemicals surged in recent days, and the stock gained $4.23, or 10 percent, to $46.40 in premarket trading.

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John Russo’s chemical lab in North Kingstown has been growing in recent years, even despite a deflated economy, and he expects to add another 15 to 20 positions to his 49 employees over the next year.

But the president of Ultra Scientific Analytical Solutions has found himself in a vexing spot, struggling to fill openings that require specialized training in a state where the jobless rate is close to 11 percent, the third-highest in the nation.

“It’s very difficult to find the right person, and there’s all walks of life trying to find jobs. I honestly think there’s a large swath of unemployable,” said Russo, whose firm manufactures and supplies analytical standards. “They don’t have any skills at all.”

He’s talking about the so-called skills gap, a national problem that has left businesses without a crucial pipeline of the skilled workers they need in a rapidly changing economy.

States from Rhode Island to Washington are taking steps to address the gulf. Michigan launched a “No Worker Left Behind” initiative, allowing unemployed or low-wage workers to get up to $10,000 in free tuition for community college study or other training. Several legislatures passed bills creating “lifelong learning accounts,” which, like a 401(k), help workers save for education, training or apprenticeships. The Aspen Institute is spearheading a national campaign that aims to do something that hasn’t happened nearly enough: get community colleges and employers talking.

The need for such efforts, experts say, is enormous.

In a major report in February, Harvard University highlighted what it called the “forgotten half” of young adults who are unprepared to enter the work force. Some drop out of high school. Some who finish can’t afford college. And some who can afford it find that what they’ve learned in college or vocational programs doesn’t match employers’ demands.

“Our system for preparing young adults is broken,” said William Symonds, director of the Pathways to Prosperity Project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. “We’re not saying that the system is failing everybody, but it is leaving a lot of young people behind.”

Educators and business leaders say that a “college for all” mentality is no longer realistic, if ever it was. Many positions _ known as “middle-skill” jobs _ don’t require a degree from a four-year institution. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce estimates there will be 47 million job openings in the decade ending in 2018. Nearly half will require only an associate’s degree.

Career and technical education programs, once derided as being for those who couldn’t cut it academically, offer one path. But growing those programs has not been a national priority and their quality is inconsistent at best. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has called career and technical education the “neglected stepchild” of education reform.

U.S. Rep. James Langevin, D-R.I., who co-chairs the bipartisan Career and Technical Education Caucus in Congress, wants to change that. He has pushed to expand federal funding for such programs so they can access state-of-the-art technology and equipment. He notes that Perkins Act funding has remained stagnant over the last decade even though demand for career and technical education programs has increased. The funding was cut in the current fiscal year.

The caucus co-chairman, U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., points to the story of Tricia Reich, 18, who graduated this month from the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology. The school trains students in everything from heavy equipment operation and dental assisting to building construction and landscape design Online payday loans.

In the automotive technology program, Reich learned everything there is to know about how a car works. She spent her third and final year not in the classroom but working at an auto dealership, at first earning $8 an hour as a service writer. She’s now employed at another dealership that sells and services Mercedes, Volvos and Audis, saving money in hopes of attending community college.

Reich said programs like hers give students “a leg up” once they get in the real world. “It’s definitely a big plus,” she said.

Rhode Island has been hit harder by the recession than many states, undergoing a difficult transition from an economy historically made up of low-tech, low-skill manufacturing and service jobs to a “knowledge” economy centered on IT, bioscience and health care and other such fields.

Take the old Jewelry District in downtown Providence. It’s been rebranded the Knowledge District, envisioned as a life sciences hub. But fulfilling that vision is years off.

Keith Stokes, executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp., notes that the 19-acre parcel is a stone’s throw from south Providence, home to the kind of lower-income, minority population that’s been disproportionately affected by the skills gap. But it might as well be “on the other side of the Grand Canyon,” Stokes said.

“We held on too long to these low-wage, low-skill industries, and we didn’t make the strategic long-term investments in education,” he said. “We’re playing a bit of catch-up. It’s critical for us to be able to catch up and accelerate.”

Part of the problem is the dropout rate. In Rhode Island, for every 100 students who start high school, only 73 will graduate, according to Ray DiPasquale, president of the Community College of Rhode Island. That puts the state slightly above the national average of about 72 percent.

But of those 73 who graduate in Rhode Island, 40 will enter college. And of that number, just 21 earn a degree.

At CCRI, the on-time graduation rate is only 9.8 percent, in part because the vast majority of its nearly 18,000 students require remedial coursework. The national rate is 15 percent.

The skills gap is already taking an economic toll. Some businesses spend tens of thousands of dollars to “skill up” new employees. Leaving positions unfilled is hardly better. Understaffed firms, particularly small ones, can’t deliver goods as fast as they need to or take on new customers.

The problem is likely to become even more acute as the economy picks up.

“If we don’t address this skills problem, American businesses will lack the world-class work force needed to compete at a global level, and many Americans will remain out of work, instead of accessing the high quality jobs of today and tomorrow,” said Penny Pritzker, a Chicago business executive who is advisory board chair of the Aspen Institute’s skills gap campaign.

It took Ultra Scientific’s Russo more than half a year to fill one of those jobs. Until recently, he couldn’t find anyone to operate a specialized piece of equipment that performs high-pressure liquid chromatography, a technique that separates compounds in a solution.

But his firm’s gain represents an economic loss to the state: The Ph.D. Russo is hiring is coming from Thermo Fisher Scientific, which is shuttering its manufacturing facility in east Providence.

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Greece is talking with international creditors about a second bailout package “roughly equal” to the first euro110 billion ($157 billion) rescue it accepted a year ago, the prime minister confirmed Sunday.

George Papandreou also blamed Greece’s bloated and inefficient state sector for bringing the country to its knees and vowed to effect deep changes with a fall referendum on the constitution that would make it easier to get rid of inept officials or workers.

His proposals were a populist response to widespread popular anger at politicians as austerity measures cut deeply into disposable incomes. Riots erupted on the streets of Athens last week against a new round of spending cuts and tax hikes being demanded by the European Union and the IMF.

“I ask for a vote of confidence because we are at a critical juncture … the debt and deficits are national problems that have brought Greece into a state of dependence that may have protected us from bankruptcy, but which we need to get out of,” Papandreou said, opening a three-day parliamentary debate that culminates Tuesday in a confidence vote.

He dismissed any calls to default on the country’s massive debt, saying this would be “a catastrophe for households and banks alike” and made it clear he would not back off from efforts to reduce the debt.

Papandreou called for an autumn referendum on changes to the political system, including to the country’s constitution. He said he will appoint an independent commission of up to 25 people to collect proposals from citizens and submit a report before the fall vote.

Papandreou said the constitutional revision will make it easier to prosecute delinquent government officials, now protected by a strict statute of limitations. He added other changes would include reducing the number of deputies, more transparent funding of political parties and candidates and a new electoral system, possibly even with term limits.

European donors and the International Monetary Fund are demanding that Greece pass new austerity measures before they release the next euro12 billion ($17 billion) loan from the first rescue package.

Many experts say Greece’s debt load is too great and expect it to eventually default. The European Central Bank, however, has been adamant that a Greek default is unthinkable because it could set off an unpredictable chain reaction that would badly hurt European banks, roil markets and make it harder for other indebted countries to cope. The ECB also has significant exposure to Greek debt.

Spooked by financial markets’ reaction to Greece’s political turmoil, Germany on Friday dropped its demand that the private sector be forced to share in the pain of a second Greek bailout. Papandreou also reshuffled his Cabinet and named a new finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, who was in Luxembourg on Sunday at a EU finance ministers meeting.

Papandreou said the original loan’s assumption that Greece would be able to borrow from the markets in 2012 was no longer valid, but insisted his Socialist government had done all it was required to, passing painful austerity measures and reducing the deficit as a percentage of GDP by 5 percent in 2010.

Instead, he blamed ratings agencies, tax havens, “derivatives speculators” and the media for allegedly spreading panic and discouraging potential investors.

Papandreou said his government had tried from the start to negotiate lower interest rates and reschedule payments for the first bailout package, something he said his government finally achieved in March.

“This way, we will save, by 2015, euro48.5 billion ($69 billion) in debt repayments, including euro4 billion ($5.7 billion) on interest alone,” he said.

Opposition leader Antonis Samaras, meanwhile, called for early elections and said Papandreou’s referendum proposal was an evasive maneuver masking his inability to govern. He demanded that Papandreou be tougher in negotiating bailout terms with international creditors and repeated that raising taxes and cutting wages and pensions was the wrong way to go.

“We do not ask you to better apply the wrong recipe but to change it,” Samaras said.

Samaras also proposed that Papandreou reactivate stalled highway projects to create jobs and seek faster EU funds for such projects.

With 155 deputies in the 300-seat parliament, Papandreou is expected to win the confidence vote. His next task is to pass the new austerity package by the end of the month, despite near-daily protest marches and sit-ins.

Protesters who flock each afternoon to Athens’ central Syntagma square in front of parliament have been wearing stickers saying “We owe nothing, we’ll sell nothing, we’ll pay nothing” _ rejecting creditors’ demands to sell off state assets.

Keeping up the anti-austerity drumbeat, GENOP, the powerful union of state electric employees, was to begin rolling 48-hour strikes at midnight Sunday, threatening blackouts across the country.

Unions are planning a 48-hour general strike on the date, yet to be determined, when parliament votes on the new austerity package.

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World stock markets fell Monday after a slowdown in U.S. hiring added to evidence that the recovery in the world’s biggest economy is weakening.

Oil prices fell below $100 a barrel amid expectations of weaker demand. The dollar dropped against the euro and the yen.

In early European trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.4 percent to 5,833.07 and Germany’s DAX slipped 0.3 percent to 7,088.04. France’s CAC-40 was 0.6 percent down to 3,868.55.

Wall Street was headed for a lower opening, with Dow Jones industrial futures falling 18 points to 12,107 and S&P 500 futures down less than 2 points to 1,294.60.

While pessimism has been on the rise amid data pointing toward an easing of the U.S. economic recovery, analysts said a slowdown was not altogether unexpected, as measures taken by various governments to cope with the 2008 financial crisis were winding down.

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s rescue plan _ a $600 billion bond-buying effort to spur spending and growth _ ends this month. China, which embarked on massive government stimulus spending to help counter the impact of plunging exports, applied the brakes after that spending began spurring inflation.

“We got massive pump-priming by governments everywhere,” said Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB-GK Research in Singapore. “Many of these measures are beginning to fade away, and as a result, we are beginning to see growth normalizing.”

Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average slid 1.2 percent to close at 9,380.35, with shares of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the Japanese utility battling to bring a crippled nuclear power plant under control, plunging 28 percent.

The tumble comes a day after TEPCO acknowledged that 1,500 more tons of radioactive water were being moved into temporary storage at its Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in an attempt to prevent a massive spill of contaminated water into the environment.

More than 100,000 tons of radioactive water have pooled beneath the plant in northeastern Japan since it was hobbled by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11 payday loans guaranteed no fax.

Meanwhile, gaming giants Sony Corp. and Nintendo Corp. lost ground as they scrambled to recover from attacks by unidentified hackers. Sony drooped 3.2 percent and Nintendo was down 1.6 percent.

Markets in Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand and mainland China were closed for holidays.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index lost 0.3 percent to 4,569.10, with industrial and mining shares broadly lower. BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s largest mining company, and rival Rio Tinto Ltd. were down 0.5 percent, while Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. lost 0.7 percent.

Benchmarks in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia were down.

On Wall Street on Friday, a weak employment report spurred another stock sell-off, two days after the Dow Jones industrial average had its worst drop in nearly a year.

The Dow lost 0.8 percent to close at 12,151.26. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 1 percent to 1,300.16. The Nasdaq composite fell 1.5 percent to 2,732.78.

Employers added only 54,000 new workers in May, the fewest in eight months and well below what analysts were expecting, the Labor Department reported. Private companies hired the fewest new workers in nearly a year. The unemployment rate inched up to 9.1 percent from 9 percent.

The Labor Department’s closely watched monthly jobs report reinforced earlier signals that the U.S. economy is slowing. High gas and food prices have cut into consumer spending and the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan have hurt U.S. manufacturers by slowing down supplies of industrial parts.

Benchmark oil for July delivery was down $1 cents to $99.24 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 18 cents to settle at $100.22 on Friday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.4638 after hitting a one-month high of $1.4624 late Friday in New York. The dollar dropped to 80.15 yen from 80.26 yen.

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There will be 146 fewer Blockbuster Canada stores that accept gift cards issued by the video and game retailer starting today as liquidation sales begin at the locations that will be closed in coming weeks.

The firm Grant Thornton, which is court-appointed receiver for Blockbuster Canada, is maintaining a list of locations that are due to be closed on its website.

As of Thursday, there were six more locations on the list than previously reported earlier this week when store employees got the news.

Ontario will have the largest number of closures at 63, but every province will lose at least one Blockbuster store.

Blockbuster currently operates about 400 stores across the country.

An estimated 1,400 employees could lose their jobs out of the 4,000 who work for Blockbuster across Canada.

DNA taken from former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn matches material on the uniform of a hotel maid who says he sexually assaulted her, two people familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press.

The two people would not describe the material found on the shirt but said DNA matched a sample from Strauss-Kahn, who submitted to testing after his arrest more than a week ago. He denies the maid’s allegations.

Testing was being performed on other items, said the two people, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke to the AP on Monday on condition of anonymity.

During their investigation, authorities cut out a piece of carpet and swabbed sinks and other surfaces in his hotel room. Investigators told the AP they believed the carpet in the hotel room may contain Strauss-Kahn’s semen, spat out after an episode of forced oral sex by the maid.

The forensic evidence is the first to link Strauss-Kahn to the woman _ and it’s also on track with what his lawyers have suggested would be his defense.

Strauss-Kahn’s attorney Benjamin Brafman declined to comment on Monday. At a court hearing last week, he told a judge that forensic evidence developed in the investigation “will not be consistent with a forcible encounter” _ leading to speculation that Strauss-Kahn’s defense would argue that it was consensual.

New York Police Department spokesman Paul J. Browne and the Manhattan district attorney’s office wouldn’t comment.

The one-time French presidential contender has been charged with a criminal sex act, attempted rape and sexual abuse and is free on $1 million bail, under house arrest at a lower Manhattan apartment. He’s been accused of attacking the 32-year-old West African immigrant on May 14 in his luxury suite at the Sofitel hotel near Manhattan’s Times Square. His lawyers say he’s innocent.

Staff at the Sofitel told authorities that the 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn had made passes at them the day before the attack was reported, including flirting with a clerk and calling another employee to ask her up to his room, according to a third person with direct knowledge of investigators’ interviews with staff paydayloans.

Strauss-Kahn had flirted with one female staff member who accompanied him to his suite to make sure his accommodations were satisfactory after he checked in on May 13, the person said. Later, he phoned the desk clerk who had checked him in, asking her if she would like to get together with him when she got off duty, the person said. The desk clerk refused, saying she was not allowed to socialize with the VIP guest, the person said.

That person also wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

On Monday, lawyers for Strauss-Kahn continued to search for new housing for their client as he awaits trial. His bail agreement hit a snag late last week after tenants at the Upper East Side apartment building chosen for his house arrest refused to allow him, citing unwanted media attention.

Strauss-Kahn has been staying at a temporary location under watch by armed guards with Stroz Friedberg, the same company that guarded disgraced financier Bernard Madoff. It wasn’t clear when he would be moved. French and U.S. media have been staking out the building where Strauss-Kahn spent the weekend after he was released from his Rikers Island jail cell.

He resigned last Wednesday from the IMF.

His attorneys have described Strauss-Kahn as a loving father and family man. They say his actions after the attack was reported are not those of a guilty man eager for a quick escape. He left the hotel, had lunch and then phoned later to ask if he’d left anything behind. When hotel staff said he had left his cellphone, he told them exactly where he was: at John F. Kennedy International Airport on a flight bound for Paris. Authorities pulled him from the jetliner.

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Success breeds followers. So will LinkedIn’s blockbuster IPO lure scores of private companies to the stock market?

“One company does not make a trend, but it can certainly help,” says Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, the venture-capital community’s trade group.

LinkedIn Corp. jumped 109 percent on its first day of trading Thursday. Financial news channels tracked the company’s soaring stock as it lifted off, turning its backers into millionaires and maybe more on paper. A dazzling debut like that, Heesen says, is bound to encourage eager entrepreneurs and the investors who back them to follow LinkedIn’s lead.

The networking web site raised $352 million from investors, and then more than doubled from its $45 opening price. The stock slipped 1 percent Friday to $93.09.

LinkedIn is the biggest example of a trend that’s already under way but has escaped much notice until now. The market for initial public offerings has finally emerged from a long drought. Car-sharing service Zipcar Inc., hospital chain HCA Holdings and others have raised $24 billion through initial public offerings so far this year, according to data provider Dealogic. That’s more than triple the amount during the same period a year ago.

Kathleen Smith, a principal at the IPO advisory firm Renaissance Capital, says that if companies keep going public at their current pace, more than 200 companies would raise $50 billion this year. It would easily be the best year for IPOs since the Internet bubble popped.

“2011 could be the best year since 2000,” Smith says.

One reason for the rush of companies wanting to go public: They are joining a two-year rally. The typical newly listed company lost half its value in 2008, using Renaissance Capital’s IPO index as a gauge. The index, which tracks returns on companies listed in the previous two years, jumped 20 percent last year and is up 3.4 percent so far this year.

“In the long run, the market only works if these stocks trade up,” Smith says.

Strength in the IPO market can start a virtuous cycle, Heesen says. Venture capital firms hoping for a LinkedIn-sized payday are encouraged to back more entrepreneurs. Investment banks are more willing to line up investors and take companies public. And after going public, companies are likely to use their cash to hire more workers.

The financial crisis upended all markets in the fall of 2008. But the market for IPOs remained bleak longer than others. Just two companies went public in the first three months of 2009.

“Those were the Death Valley days,” Smith says.

Now, some 165 companies have filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to open their companies up to public investors, the largest lineup since 2000. The list includes Dunkin’ Donuts, Spirit Airlines and Yandex, a Russian internet search company. Both Spirit and Yandex are set to debut this week.

LinkedIn’s ascent on Thursday naturally brought comparisons with the tech bubble and IPOs from companies like Netscape, Amazon.com and Pets.com. Consider LinkedIn’s valuation. At a market value of $8.8 billion, the company is already worth 18 times its projected sales this year. Major internet companies like Google go for an average of five times projected sales, according to an analysis by Capital IQ.

But the current breed of IPOs is different, says Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida. In the 1990s, an average of 300 companies went public a year, and they were mostly small start-ups. In 2010, 171 companies went public and many were established companies.

LinkedIn is hardly a fledgling Internet website. It earned $3.4 million last year on $243 million in revenue. “LinkedIn is not a small company,” Ritter says.

Another key difference: the companies going public now are more likely to be profitable, whereas tech-bubble companies were more likely to sell the promise of profits. According to Renaissance Capital’s data, 70 percent of companies that went public in the tech bubble were losing money. Today, 70 percent of companies that go public have already turned a profit.

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Chip Cutter contributed to this report.

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