Analyst Downgrades: Zillow Group, LinkedIn, and Synaptics

Analysts are weighing in today on Internet real estate resource Zillow Group Inc (NASDAQ:Z), professional networking site LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD), and touchscreen designer Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA). Here's a quick roundup of today's bearish brokerage notes on Z, LNKD, and SYNA.

• Z, which will step up to the earnings plate next Tuesday evening, was hit with a downgrade to "underperform" from "market perform" at Cowen and Company, which also slashed its price target to $60 from $90. However, the stock is up 1.3% this morning at $84.20, paring its year-to-date deficit to 20.4%. Not surprisingly, sentiment on the Street is bearish toward Zillow Group Inc. Over 70% of covering analysts consider the underperformer a "hold" or worse, and 35% of its float is sold short -- representing almost eight days of trading, at Z's typical volumes.


• Despite posting better-than-anticipated second-quarter results, LNKD has plunged 9.9% this morning at $204.76, as investors worry about the company's widening quarterly losses and lackluster full-year sales forecast. Since touching a late-February record peak of $276.18, the shares have retreated nearly 26%. Contributing to today's swoon is a round of bearish analyst notes. Evercore ISI downgraded LinkedIn Corp's rating to "hold" and lowered its price target to $220, while explaining the company's "more conservative outlook" is the result of "limited visibility on its marketing solutions line, where it continues to make a transition away from high-priced premium display to feed-based and more performance-based ads." Similarly, Piper Jaffray trimmed its price target to $240. However, Jefferies, Needham, Cantor, and Raymond James each raised their price targets. Elsewhere, short-term option traders have been put-skewed toward LNKD. The stock's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 1.07 ranks in the 88th percentile of its annual range.


• SYNA is getting destroyed, after the company posted a disappointing fiscal fourth-quarter profit, offered up an uninspiring full-year revenue forecast, and received a subsequent round of bearish brokerage notes. Specifically, seven analysts cut their price targets on the stock, the most drastic of which came from Dougherty & Company -- which slashed its target to $78 from $90. At last check, Synaptics, Incorporated has dropped 6.8% at $73.89, and since hitting a mid-June record high of $102.50, the security's loss is 28%. Option traders see more downside on the horizon, too. SYNA's 10-day ISE/CBOE/PHLX put/call volume ratio of 0.98 ranks in the 71st annual percentile.

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