JPMorgan Takes an AXE to These Major Tech Players

JPMorgan’s (NYSE:JPM) Doug Anmuth showed no mercy when he bludgeoned a host of major tech players on Wednesday, lowering his estimates for a handful of the top Internet companies, including Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), and Priceline.com (NASDAQ:PCLN).

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Softer international currency and potential macro headwinds, primarily from overseas, were cited as Anmuth’s reason for lowering his expectations. Though some stocks have already begun to account for such impacts, Anmuth said he still expects the consensus to move lower for many names as we approach second-quarter earnings over the next 6 weeks.

JPMorgan yesterday lowered its price targets on a few major players and cut its revenue growth estimates for most IT hardware segments, with the exception of tablets. Growth for software companies is expected to be lower at 2.5 percent, compared with JPMorgan’s previous estimate of 5.5 percent.

“We believe that about 35-40 percent of software growth is at risk as European, U.S. government, and financial services spending slows as the result of economic turmoil,” JPMorgan said in a note. They now believe the IT services industry will grow about 1.3 percent in 2012, down from 3.1 percent.

“As part of our 2012 IT spending growth cut, we identified 23 stock ideas (long and short) to help investors play defense in uncertain times,” the note said.

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