UPDATE: BGC Partners Downgrades Yahoo! to Hold on Near-Term Headwinds

BGC Partners downgraded Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) from Buy to Hold while reiterating a $21.00 price target.

BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis commented, "Yahoo shares are up 43% since we upgraded to BUY on May 21, 2012 at $15.50, and the stock is currently trading above our $21 price target. While we understand the renewed enthusiasm for investing in Yahoo … our opinion is that the issues with growing revenue in the core business may cause the stock to pullback from these levels over the next few months. … The search revenue guarantee that the company has with Microsoft expires at the end of this month. This may serve to temper the June quarter guidance from Yahoo as the company faces headwinds in the spring from both the sales reorganization and the expiration of the revenue-per-search floor provided by Microsoft."

Yahoo! closed at $22.17 on Tuesday.