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From Kirsten Bischoff, Opalesque New York:

As unemployment continues to take its toll on the US public, and worries over the effects of quantitative easing make the markets even more volatile, one of the few bright spots in the economy is "the tech bubble." "Suddenly everyone wants to invest in Silicon Valley. Its game-on all the time," Benchmark partner Bill Gurley recently told the Wall St. Journal.

With mind-blowing valuations (such as $70bn for Facebook), investor attitudes towards tech firms involved in upcoming IPOs can make for fascinating case studies of behavioral finance, which is something that Meir Statman explores in his recent book "What Investors Really Want: Discovering What Drives Investor Behavior and Make Smarter Financial Decisions".

The buzz back in the first quarter was the Goldman valuation of Facebook at $50bn and the reported allowance for a specially created Goldman hedge fund to reserve the right to invest $1.5bn in the firm. As of last week that buzz has changed, as movement on SecondMarket showed that buyers were balking at a valuation of $90bn, and the price of approximately $1bn worth of shares available for sale have been lowered to a price valuing the firm at $70bn. This price is down from a private market transaction during April, which gave the site an $80bn valuation. Although, it should also be noted that Facebook itsel......................

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