Marvell Tech (MRVL) Sinks On Analyst Downgrade, But Others Are More Positive

Shares of Marvell Technology (Nasdaq: MRVL) are down over 7% today following a downgrade from Jefferies & Co, citing slowing growth in the hard-disk drive market and market share losses at Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM).

Jefferies downgraded shares of Marvell from Buy to Hold and slashed its price target from $22 to $15. The firm also cut 2008 EPS estimates from $0.97 to $0.91 and 2009 from $1.10 to $0.97.

The analyst said Marvell will no longer be able to drive top-line growth at premium growth rates because of sluggish demand for hard-disk drives. They also said Marvell appears to have lost the design for Research In Motion's Javelin to Freescale.

In an opposing view, analysts at Cowen & Co. were out positive on Marvell today. The firm reiterated their Outperform rating on Marvell ahead of the company's quarter results on Thursday, August 28, after market close. The firm said, "our checks suggest that MRVL has seen some important wins at INTC (Nasdaq: INTC) and MU (NYSE: MU); product ramp of 3G devices and expansion of XScale customer base beyond RIMM; 802.11n penetration; GPS product integration & licensing update; progress on integrated products for mobile handsets (i.e., WiFi + Bluetooth + GPS) where MRVL is clearly behind competitors."

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