BUZZ-Pinterest falls as Jefferies downgrades to 'hold'

Updates

** Shares of image-sharing platform Pinterest PINS.N fall 2.5% to $29.90

** Jefferies downgrades rating on stock to "hold" from "buy" and cuts PT to $32 from $40, which still represents an upside of ~4% to stock's last close of $30.66

** Brokerage says it believes new products like Performance+ are too early to drive the mid-teens revenue growth implied in Wall Street's Q1'25 estimate

** The pace of margin expansion is likely to slow following the last two years of infrastructure cost optimization efforts - brokerage

** PINS faces challenges shifting from small-scale experimental brand budgets to larger, consistent "always on" performance ad investments - brokerage

** Jefferies says PINS' third party partnerships with Amazon, Google are less incremental to growth than the brokerage had expected

** 29 of 41 brokerages rate the stock "buy" or higher, 12 "hold"; their median PT is $38, per LSEG-compiled data

** PINS stock fell ~22% in 2024

(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru)

((Jaspreet.Singh@thomsonreuters.com ; https://twitter.com/i_jass))