Many Tech Analysts Change Ratings and Targets in Upgrades and Downgrades

Technology

Published: February 16, 2016 12:11 pm

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 1:08 pm

Every morning there are dozens of analyst reports from Wall Street. Some offer analyst upgrades for stocks to buy, while some cover analyst downgrades for stocks to sell or to avoid. Then there are times where analysts have clustered calls on a sector.

Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades were numerous, but it turns out that the pattern for the day is that analysts are lowering or raising many of their price targets in key technology stocks.

Investors have to know that analysts raise their price targets as share prices rise, and they lower their price targets as share prices drop. That is the nature of the financial markets, and old bull market price targets just might not be possible after these stocks drop 30% or 50% in their share prices.

24/7 Wall St. could not help but notice how many estimates and price targets were lowered in the tech sector on Tuesday. Some of these cuts were not accompanied by formal downgraded ratings, but most were based on lower earnings estimates.

Akamai Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) was maintained as Buy at MKM Partners, but the firm lowered its price target to $69 from $77. It trades at about $51.00 now, within a 52-week trading range of $39.43 to $78.44.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Macquarie, and the price target was cut to $40 from $45. Shares were last seen at $38.50, in a 52-week range of $36.68 to $54.82. Its consensus price target was last listed as $51.40.