As previously reported, Morgan Stanley downgraded LinkedIn (LNKD) to Equal Weight from Overweight. Analyst Brian Nowak no longer thinks LinkedIn will be as big of a platform as previously expected given the slowdown in large enterprise customers’ and online talent solutions’ growth.
Rising strategic investments across all businesses raise execution risk and reduce earnings power, the analyst said. Nowak now believes LinkedIn should be comped to other Internet platform companies rather than the SaaS group, given the slowdown in the talent solutions business, resulting in him lowering his price target to $125 from $190 on LinkedIn shares.
