Alphabet, Facebook Shares Decline On Citi Rating Downgrade Over Ad Revenue Growth Concerns: Bloomberg

Digital advertising companies like Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL and Facebook Inc’s FB shares dropped on rating downgrade by Citigroup Inc C from buy to neutral over the decline in ad budgets, Bloomberg reports.
Citi gave Facebook a $320 price target and Alphabet a $2,415 price target.
Interestingly, both the companies had beat the Q1 analyst consensus.
Citi expects a deceleration in the pandemic-induced growth in the last two quarters, jeopardizing the stock multiples.
Citi reiterated neutral ratings on both Pinterest Inc PINS and Twitter Inc TWTR, while Snap Inc SNAP got a sell rating.
Roku Inc ROKU was the only digital-ad stock that got a buy rating due to growth prospects associated with the budding connected TV market.
Bloomberg’s average analyst price target implies an upside of over 20% for Alphabet and 25% for Facebook.
Last week, Bloomberg had projected an over 30% Facebook core mobile-ad business growth despite competition in the second half.
Price action: GOOG shares traded lower by 2.31% at $2,343.18, and FB shares traded lower by 4.40% at $305.43 on the last check Monday.