Business

A week of delving into in-depth coverage of energy issues at the World Renewable Energy Forum was interrupted by breaking news over at the state capitol where an unexpected special legislative session was called.

Facebook will be valued at about $100 billion when it goes public this week. What would it take for that valuation to be justified?

As we noted yesterday, the value of a typical big, public company is 15 times the company's annual profit. So a company valued at $30 billion would typically have annual profits of $2 billion.

Facebook will be valued at 100 times its current annual profits. That's because investors expect the company's profits to go through the roof in the coming years.

For Facebook to achieve that kind of growth, some combination of two things will need to happen: The company will need to add more users, and it will need to get more revenue out of each user it has.

There was a 2.6 percent increase in housing starts in April from March, the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development just reported.

The Associated Press calls the increase "evidence that the battered housing market is slowly healing." Bloomberg News says the larger-than-expected increase signals the housing sector may be stabilizing. It adds that "employment gains, cheaper homes and record-low mortgage rates are combining to lift demand and encourage builders to take on projects."