Stifel Downgrades Sina Corp

On Friday, analysts at Stifel downgraded shares of Sina Corp SINA from Buy to Hold.

George Askew stated, “we no longer see a catalyst to force the market to recognize this value in SINA’s share price and we expect the share price to remain range bound.”

Askew determines four conclusions for the downgrade.

1) Very few investors in the sector have interest in value stocks, even deeply discounted names; revenue growth stories remain king.
2) Value-exposing events such as the IPOs of SINA investee companies Weibo (WB, $19.62, NR) in 2Q14, and Alibaba (BABA, $114.84, Buy) in 3Q14, are not adequate catalysts to drive SINA shares higher.
3) There are no activist-like external forces in China to force the market to recognize value.
4) Future SINA corporate business strategies are not focused on exposing the asset value. Indeed we expect the company to take more minority stakes in investee companies in the future.

Shares of Sina closed Friday’s session at $39.00, down 6.8 percent.