UPDATE: JP Morgan Downgrades VeriFone to Neutral on Miss Pre-Announcement

JP Morgan downgraded VeriFone PAY from Overweight to Neutral and lowered the price target from $42.00 to $24.00. JP Morgan said, "VeriFone pre-announced a big miss last night. Fundamentally, we thought a minor guidance cut would be a tonic for the stock, as we've been below consensus for some time, but this capitulation was far worse than we expected. Management blamed the miss on five issues, most of which were self-inflicted in our view, but we think it's due more to the fact that transitioning to a services revenue model from product sales is really hard and prone to blow-ups (as we witnessed last night). This was not a disintermediation related miss, in our view, and we are optimistic the new CFO can clear any doubt on accounting and that PAY will fix near-term product execution issues." VeriFone closed at $31.89 on Wednesday.