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Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) may still be a troubled stock compared to the recent IPO trends.  A couple of issues are helping it overcome some woes so far today.  The CEO showed in his annual letter to shareholders that the recent bumpiness is due to the growth rates of Groupon.

The company now claims over 11,000 employees and has efforts in 44 countries as of now.  The CEO letter also noted an enormous and untapped opportunity in its core business: “Through smarter deal targeting, there is significant growth waiting to be unlocked in our core daily deal business.  In the United States alone, we have more than 10 million geo-located subscribers engaging with Groupon every month who have yet to make a purchase. We are kicking off a campaign to activate these customers, primarily by featuring deals that are closer to them; as you might imagine, deal proximity is a major driver of purchase behavior.”

Mobile is growing here as the rate of the total deals is now 30% mobile rather than 25% just four months ago.  Another benefit today is that a smaller firm called B. Riley upgraded the shares from Sell to a less negative Neutral rating.

Investors are so far cheering for Groupon this morning with it shares up 5.5% at $10.52 against a 52-week range of $9.82 to $31.14.  The online coupon and daily deals site still has a market value of $6.8 billion according to Yahoo! Finance.

Keep in mind that this Groupon IPO was at $20.00 and shares rose 50% at the IPO launch before losing their value and then some.

JON C. OGG