Close

Brean Capital Maintains Sell on LinkedIn (LNKD) Ahead of 2Q15

July 27, 2015 6:50 AM EDT
Get Alerts LNKD Hot Sheet
Price: $195.96 --0%

Rating Summary:
    10 Buy, 30 Hold, 0 Sell

Rating Trend: = Flat

Today's Overall Ratings:
    Up: 13 | Down: 11 | New: 11
Join SI Premium – FREE

Brean Capital maintained a Sell rating and $172.00 price target on LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) ahead of 2Q15 report. Analyst Sarah Hindlian believes that LinkedIn will post upside to 2Q, following last quarter’s lowered bar on a sales force reorganization. LNKD is scheduled to release its earnings on July 30th.

Hindlian commented, "We maintain our Sell rating and caution that although Q2’15 does include a lower bar, the beats and raises of the past may prove more difficult to come by in the future. Lofty valuation is problematic and rapidly decelerating revenue growth is troubling even as the company buys lower margin businesses to bolster growth. For Q2’15, we expect even a substantial upside to cons. numbers will suggest a steep deceleration as a 3% beat (in line with the 10 quarter avg. beat) still equates to nearly ~14% decel vs. FY’14. Furthermore, LinkedIn’s valuation is ~44% more expensive than Facebook’s (Buy/$108 TP) on FY’16 EV/EBITDA (26.5x vs. Facebook at 18.4x) despite Facebook’s recent rally and FY’16 growth expectations ~10% above LinkedIn. With both stocks up ~26% over the past year, we believe LinkedIn’s valuation reflects a cognitive dissonance even before we dive into the fundamental headwinds our recent analysis uncovered."

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on LinkedIn click here. For more ratings news on LinkedIn click here.

Shares of LinkedIn closed at $225.06 yesterday.



Serious News for Serious Traders! Try StreetInsider.com Premium Free!

You May Also Be Interested In





Related Categories

Analyst Comments

Related Entities

Earnings