UPDATE: Barclays Downgrades Symantec

In a note released Friday, Barclays downgraded Symantec SYMC from Overweight to Equal-weight and reduced the price target from $26 to $23. Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow explained that the uncertainty attached to the departure of CEO Steve Bennett and the inevitable learning curve for new leadership, along with an increasingly competitive market space provide headwinds for Symantec. Despite beliefs that Symantec will achieve fourth quarter 2014 estimates and even possibly outperform on margins, Lenschow sees weakening data points in the VAR survey for the long term, as well as very few catalysts for positive corrections.