UPDATE: Stifel Nicolaus Downgrades Synacor to Hold on Valuation

Stifel Nicolaus lowers its rating on Synacor SYNC from Buy to Hold and suspends its previous $10 price target. Stifel Nicolaus comments, "The facts as we see them are: 1) Synacor has very bright growth prospects with cable MSOs and device manufacturers alike; 2) Despite those bright growth prospects, we do not view SYNC as a classic "Cloud stock" worthy of comparisons to salesforce.com or other enterprise-focused, subscription-based models. SYNC's business model primarily relies upon Search & Display advertising; 3) As such, we view the relevant comp group as being a set of digital advertising enablement providers that are currently trading at a mean EV/EBITDA multiple of 10.7x on CY13. SYNC now trades at 17.6x." SYNC closed at $14.70 on Thursday.