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The stock of popular but unprofitable Internet radio service Pandora Media Inc. increased in its market debut Wednesday, adding to the IPO frenzy that has some watchers talking tech bubble.

Its shares opened at $20 each and rose as high as $26 in early trading on Wednesday. That’s up from offering price of $16, the high end of their proposed range. By afternoon, its shares traded at $18.75, up $2.75, or 17 percent, from the offering price. At that level, Pandora’s 159.7 million shares were worth nearly $3 billion.

“In my opinion that’s extremely rich for a company that’s hoping to make a profit in fiscal 2012,” said Scott Sweet, managing partner of IPOboutique.com.

In fact it is well above the current value of AOL Inc. ($2.1 billion), a relic of the previous Internet era that is working to transform its business from dial-up service to online and advertising. But it’s a small fraction of such Internet behemoths as Google Inc. ($162 billion) or even Yahoo Inc. ($19 billion).

Pandora’s offering comes amid a recent fervor for high-profile Internet IPOs. Though sky-high valuations have evoked the tech bubble of the late 1990s, investors hope this time it’s different. Today’s biggest Web startups are more mature than their ’90s counterparts were, and some are already profitable.

The professional networking service LinkedIn Corp. was one of the first to make its public debut among in the latest generation of Web startups. Already profitable, LinkedIn has a market capitalization of about $7 billion.

Daily deals site Groupon Inc. has also filed to go public, though it has not yet provided details on its expected price range or the amount of shares it plans to sell. “FarmVille” maker Zynga Inc. is also expected to make its public debut soon.

Facebook, the owner of the world’s largest social network, has indicated it will file its IPO documents before May 2012. Based on a Goldman Sachs Group investment, Facebook was valued at $50 billion at the beginning of this year low interest rate personal loans.

Pandora, based in Oakland, Calif., got its start in 2000 as a music recommendation service, then known as Savage Beast Technologies. It changed its name in 2005 when it launched an Internet radio service that lets people stream music over the Web, letting users create custom stations based on songs, genres or artists. It also created the “Music Genome Project,” assembling hundreds of musical characteristics, or “genes,” into a “Music Genome.” This analysis became the basis of Pandora’s music recommendation service.

“It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records _ it’s about what each individual song sounds like,” wrote Pandora’s founder, Tim Westergren, on the company’s website.

The service is popular, but so far the company has not turned a profit. Pandora has 94 million registered users and it makes most of its money from advertising. It also offers an ad-free, premium service at a cost, but only a small percentage of its users have signed up for it.

In the most recent fiscal year, Pandora booked a loss of $1.8 million before paying dividends on preferred stock. Its revenue was $138 million.

“Unless they can continue to increase their subscribers or offer new material, obviously their losses will continue to grow,” Sweet said. “I am not optimistic long term with Pandora.”

Shares can be volatile on their first day trading. LinkedIn priced its stock at $45 in mid-May. The shares soared above $100 before noon on the day they hit the market and closed at $94.25 on a trading volume of 30 million shares.

On Wednesday, LinkedIn’s stock fell $2.44, or 3.2 percent, to $73.90 in afternoon trading.

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Americans borrowed more money in April for the seventh straight month, but they cut back on using their credit cards.

The Federal Reserve says consumer borrowing rose by nearly $7.2 billion, fueled by greater demand for school and auto loans. A category that measures credit card use fell for the second time in three months. It has risen only twice since August 2008, the height of the financial crisis.

The 3.1 percent overall increase pushed consumer borrowing to a seasonally adjusted annual level of $2.43 trillion, just above the nearly four-year low of $2.39 trillion hit in September.

The report includes auto loans, student loans and credit cards, but excludes mortgages and loans tied to real estate. The Fed will give a more complete picture of Americans’ debt on Thursday when it issues its quarterly report on household net worth.

Households began borrowing less and saving more to cope with the recession, which ended in June 2009. Credit card use has plummeted nearly 19 percent over the past 20 months and it has dropped 5 percent over the past year.

Overall borrowing has increased in recent months. But analysts say the reason for that is also a reflection of the weak economy: the gains have been driven by more people borrowing money to attend school _ many of whom are out of work.

High unemployment, steep gas prices and a weakening housing market have also forced people to resist reaching for their plastic.

“When you take out student loans, you’re still seeing credit card use, and borrowing overall, falling,” said Paul Dales, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics. “That’s a sign about how people view the economy.”

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China’s manufacturing sector eased in April, a survey showed Sunday, suggesting that the government’s efforts to cool the economy may be having some effect.

The state-affiliated China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing reported that its purchasing managers index, or PMI, fell to 52.9 in April, down from 53.4 in March.

The government-sponsored survey quoted federation analyst Zhang Liqun as saying the decline of the index in April was in line with demand.

“The growth in demand slowed down, resulting in the adjustment of inventory and increasing the possibility that the growth rate of the economy will fall,” Zhang was quoted as saying.

Indicators for new orders, production, new export orders and purchasing prices fell, the purchasing manager’s survey showed.

A second and competing survey by London-based HSBC said Friday that its China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index remained 51 same day payday loans.8 in April, matching its March level and just above a seven-month low of 51.7 in February. Figures above 50 signal expansion.

China’s economy expanded by a rapid 9.7 percent in the first quarter of this year _ little changed from the previous quarter’s 9.8 percent _ despite government efforts to steer growth to a sustainable level following last year’s double-digit expansion.

Beijing has made taming inflation its priority. A double-digit jump in food costs in March pushed inflation to a 32-month high of 5.4 percent. That was despite four interest rate hikes since October, curbs on bank lending and government orders to producers to hold down price increases.

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Libya’s rebels urged the U.S. military Wednesday to reassert a stronger role in the NATO-led air campaign and Qatar’s crown prince told international envoys it was time to help the uprising tip the scales against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.

The appeals reflected the urgent tone for meetings among the U.N. secretary-general and other top Western and Arab envoys as they gathered in Qatar’s capital to discuss ways to end the Libyan crisis.

While peace efforts remain the top objective, there also appears to be a shift toward trying to boost the rebels’ firepower to protect their territory from government offensives. One proposal noted by Italy _ Libya’s former colonial ruler _ calls for allies to provide defensive weapons.

Qatar’s crown prince said it was a “race against time” to give Gadhafi’s outgunned opponents the tools to fight.

“It is time to help the Libyan people defend themselves, and to defend the Libyan people,” said Sheik Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, whose nation is one of the few Arab states contributing to the NATO-led air campaign in Libya and helped the rebels sell oil under their control.

“And what are the rebels except civilians who have taken up arms to defend themselves in a difficult situation and (who fight) an uneven battle?”

Rebel spokesman Mahmoud Shamman said the anti-Gadhafi forces will not bend on their demands that any peace proposal require Gadhafi and his inner circle to leave the country. The rebel conditions for Gadhafi’s ouster effectively killed a cease-fire bid by Africa’s main political bloc this week.

Shammam also urged NATO to step up its air campaign to hit pro-Gadhafi forces in efforts to protect civilians and appealed for a greater role by the United States, which turned over operations to the military bloc last month. Shammam’s comments echoed calls by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and others after government forces shelled the rebel-held city of Misrata in western Libya.

“When the Americans were involved the mission was very active and it was more leaning toward protecting the civilians,” said Shammam.

“NATO is very slow responding to these attacks on the civilians. We’d like to see more work toward protecting the civilians,” Shammam said before the one-day conference that includes Britain’s foreign secretary, U.S. State Department envoy William J. Burns and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

It also was expected to be the first high-profile forum for Gadhafi’s former foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who defected to Britain last month. But Koussa was absent from the main discussions and rebel officials insisted Koussa has no role in their movement.

In Benghazi, the rebels’ stronghold in eastern Libya, rebel spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga said Tuesday that talks with Koussa were “not on the agenda.” Shammam told Britain’s Sky News: “We did not invite him here. He is not part of our delegation.”

The host for the first meeting of the Libyan Contact Group _ the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar _ is one of the few Arab countries providing warplanes to the NATO air campaign and has helped Libyan rebels sell oil to buy weapons and supplies.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he believes the Libyan opposition is “steadily becoming better organized,” but could not predict how long the military stalemate will persist no credit check payday loans.

“It will end at some stage with the departure of Gadhafi, with a political process in Libya that is a more inclusive process,” he told the BBC.

But an official from the African Union _ which tried this week to broker a peace pact _ suggested there is no international consensus on trying to force out Gadhafi.

“We cannot as international or regional organizations say, `Go,’” said Noureddine Mezni, a spokesman for the bloc’s chairman.

Italy’s foreign ministry spokesman, Maurizio Massari, said allies may consider providing “defensive weapons” and equipment to rebels, but did not give details on the type of arms.

“The discussion of arms is certainly on the table,” he said. “We are not talking about offensive arms … Every country will decide. It is a political decision.”

In Brussels, NATO said it conducted airstrikes Tuesday on an ammunition depot in Sirte on Libya’s central coast and destroyed 12 tanks near the western town of Zintan, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of the capital Tripoli.

On Tuesday, French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet complained that France and Britain were carrying “the brunt of the burden” on the airstrikes. He said the reduced U.S. effort _ American forces are now in support, not combat, roles in the airstrike campaign _ have made it impossible “to loosen the noose around Misrata,” which has become a symbol of the resistance against Gadhafi.

“Let’s be realistic. The fact that the U.S. has left the sort of the kinetic part of the air operation has had a sizable impact. That is fairly obvious,” said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

In Paris, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy planned talks later Wednesday about the military operation in Libya.

Libyan opposition spokesman Ali al-Issawi said that Gadhafi’s soldiers have killed about 10,000 people throughout the country and injured 30,000 others, with 7,000 of the injured facing life-threatening wounds. He said an additional 20,000 people were missing and suspected of being in Gadhafi’s prisons. There was no way to independently verify his claims, and the numbers are far higher than rights groups and foreign diplomats have estimated.

Qatar, meanwhile, is helping with a vital fuel link for the rebels.

Qatar said it oversaw last week’s sale of more than $100 million in crude oil from rebel-held areas, and has delivered four shipments of fuel to Benghazi, including diesel, propane and gasoline.

Talks on Libya shift to Cairo on Thursday at the Arab League headquarters.

The U.N. secretary-general is expected to join others, including Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, African Union commission chairman Jean Ping and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton. They are expected to discuss a Turkish peace initiative.

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The British government on Thursday accepted plans by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. to buy full control of British Sky Broadcasting _ on condition that it spin off its Sky News channel as an independent company.

The takeover plan cleared by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is still subject to consultation before gaining final approval. News Corp. would then be free to make an offer for the remaining BSkyB shares.

As part of the deal, News Corp. would still retain a 39.1 percent stake in the news channel, the same as its current stake in BSkyB.

Murdoch’s News Corp. wants full ownership of BSkyB to get access to all of the pay-television company’s profits, which amounted to 407 million pounds ($648 million) in the last half of 2010.

But some media critics and politicians have expressed concern about the deal. Murdoch already has considerable influence in the British media _ he owns the top-selling tabloid newspaper, The Sun, as well as The Times, The Sunday Times and the News of the World saving account pay day loan.

The BBC is among a coalition of British media players demanding an inquiry by Britain’s Competition Commission, expressing concerns about its impact.

A coalition of media groups, which includes BT, Guardian Media Group, Associated Newspapers, Trinity Mirror, Northcliffe Media and Telegraph Media Group, signaled immediately that it would seek to block the proposal. The group said that the proposal did nothing to address concerns that News Corp. would restrict or distort competition.

Hunt said he was “very aware” of the controversy surrounding the deal and that he would consult on the plans until March 21 before making a final decision.

“Nothing is more precious to me than the free and independent press for which this country is famous the world over,” he said.

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Kohl’s Corp.’s fourth-quarter net income increased 14 percent as merchandise profit margins improved through exclusive brand offerings and tight inventory management.

The department store operator, which announced its first dividend Wednesday, said Thursday that it was boosting its buyback program but gave a full-year earnings forecast below Wall Street’s expectations.

Kohl’s earned $493 million, or $1.66 per share, compared with $431 million, or $1.40 per share, in the same period last year low interest rate personal loans.

This narrowly beat analysts’ $1.65 per share.

Revenue for the period ended Jan. 29 climbed 6 percent to $6.04 billion from $5.68 billion, meeting Wall Street’s view. Revenue at stores open at least a year rose 4.3 percent.

Kohl’s expects fiscal 2011 earnings of $4.05 to $4.25 per share. Analysts anticipate $4.37 per share.

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The job market started 2011 on solid footing, according to two separate reports released Wednesday.

Payrolls among private employers rose by 187,000 in January, payroll processor ADP said. Analysts polled by Briefing.com were predicting 145,000 jobs added for the month.

A separate report showed planned job cuts increased in January, which is not unusual for the first month of the year. But it was the lowest number of January job cuts on record.

Employers announced plans to cut 38,519 jobs in January, a 20% increase over December, according to outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The level indicates that the low downsizing rate from late last year may very well continue into 2011.

"It is not unusual to see job cuts increase in January. In fact, 2011 marks the fifth consecutive year and the tenth out of the last twelve in which January job cuts surpassed the December total," said John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas in a statement. "What made this January figure so unusual is that it was so low."

According to Challenger’s data, January is the worst month on the calendar for layoffs. From 1993 through 2010, employers announced an average of 104,560 job cuts to start the year.

The ADP and Challenger reports typically set the tone for the government’s highly anticipated monthly employment data, due Friday.

While both reports signal solid job growth for the month, economists still say the recovery will continue to be slow over the next year.

"You’re going to see a better hiring picture as a whole in 2011," said Tim Quinlan, an economist with Wells Fargo. "We hired just over a million total jobs last year, and you’ll probably see that number creep up."

"The problem is that improvement won’t be enough to make a substantial change in the unemployment rate this year," he added.

Economists are also cautious about completely trusting the ADP and Challenger reports. For the last six months, the ADP figure has missed the government’s reading on private payrolls by an average of 96,000 jobs, said Jennifer Lee, an economist with BMO Capital Markets.

Ahead of the Friday jobs report, economists surveyed by CNNMoney are predicting the economy added 149,000 jobs and the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.5% in January. 

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