A day after LinkedIn’s shares more than doubled in their public trading debut, analysts are scrambling to explain why the stock exploded and figure out what happens next.

The professional networking site’s IPO was being closely watched by Facebook, Groupon, Twitter and Zynga to gauge investors’ appetite for Internet companies.

Commodities trader Glencore made a steady market debut with shares trading just above the widely expected launch price of 530 pence, giving it solid currency for potential acquisitions.

There was heavy interest in the stock on both the London and Hong Kong exchanges, due in part to the relatively small amount of shares being sold. Glencore’s Chief Executive and largest shareholder Ivan Glasenberg said demand for the shares “significantly” exceeded the amount available.

LinkedIn’s IPO, which is expected to price after the close of U.S. markets on Wednesday and start trading on Thursday, appears set to be a stunning success, but it carries a number of risks that may shake up investors in the future.

Potential risks include LinkedIn’s gutsy bet on future growth, an admission that it does not expect to be profitable in 2011 and the prospect of having its site blocked, which would limit its user base and could curtail some of the potential growth so attractive to investors.

LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals, boosted the pricing of its initial public offering by 30 percent valuing the 9-year old company at a little over $4 billion, or about 17 times their 2010 revenue.

LinkedIn’s IPO, which is scheduled for Thursday, comes on the heels of what appears to be an unsuccessful offering Renren.

Tax deadline day, April 18, is quickly approaching.

Before you file, make sure you’re grabbing all of the deductions due to you. Robert Spielman, a certified public accountant and partner in the tax and business services practice at Marcum LLP, sat down with Prism Money and shared several ways to navigate the muddy waters of tax season. Here is his advice.

What are the best ways to reduce taxable income?

Use all the credits you can. This one is a no-brainer. There are a million credits for individuals and not everyone knows about them.  There’s the new home buyer credit and the energy credit for installing new windows, energy efficient appliances, solar energy or anything like that. There’s one set of college credits.

Teenagers eagerly await the day they can drive, but new rules of the road are forcing parents to make some tough financial decisions — including postponing their child’s driver’s license, a new survey finds.

The average household in the U.S. is paying almost $3,100 a year to allow their teen to drive, with an average of $800 going towards insurance, according to a poll by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. “Many families of teens are realizing that, as a result of the economic downturn, adjustments and sacrifices are necessary to help allow their teens to drive,” says Larry Thursby, vice president of auto product and pricing at Nationwide.

After months of tense negotiations that involved members of the French government, management disputes and influence from an agricultural lobby General Mills is set to pay $1.12 billion for private equity fund PAI Partners half of the Yoplait yogurt brand.

The General Mills bid was attractive for several reasons. It has a long standing relationship with Yoplait, holding the license for the companies yogurt in the United States since 1977. General Mills was also able to pay for the transaction off its balance sheet. Sodiaal, which controls the other half of Yoplait, was also attracted to the idea that General Mills could use its international reach to boost sales in emerging markets, particularly India and China.

Daily deals website Groupon, which last year turned down a $6 billion bid from Google, has held talks with banks about an initial public offering that would value the company as high as $25 billion, according to Bloomberg.

The Chicago-based company ballooned to 50 million users in 2010 and is available in 500 cities in 40 countries. Not bad considering the two-year-old start-up was valued at $1.3 billion just last April.

Extreme market volatility tends to make investors a jittery bunch. The deadly earthquakes and nuclear crisis in Japan will obviously have an immediate impact there, but the fallout from the catastrophe is expected to spread across the globe where it could delay or even cancel a slew of new share offerings and debt deals.

According to IFR, a Thomson Reuters publication, one major deal in the pipeline that’s at risk of cancellation is the planned $6-$8 billion London-Hong Kong IPO of Swiss commodity trading group, Glencore, a deal expected in May.

Nasdaq OMX Group Inc, not wanting to be left out in the cold of the global mergers frenzy among exchanges, is closer to making a counter-bid for NYSE Euronext, a source familiar with the situation said. Nasdaq would finance the transaction with up to $5 billion in debt and would most likely have to sell Euronext’s Liffe derivatives business to IntercontinentalExchange Inc to raise the needed capital.

If successful, such a counter-offer would redraw the global exchange map and thwart yet another merger plan by Germany’s Deutsche Boerse.