Synaptics Falls Amid Pacific Crest Downgrade, Stifel Sees Buying Opportunity

Shares of Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ: SYNA) fell sharply Friday amid differing views on the stock.

Pacific Crest analyst John Vinh cut his rating on the company from Outperform to Sector Perform due to concerns that the company may have lost the touch controller socket contract on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S6.

Stifel analyst Kevin Cassidy, meanwhile, felt the stock’s pullback created a buying opportunity.

Cassidy was “not convinced” Samsung had made a final decision, and said the company would continue to use Synaptics' technology in other smartphones.

Cassidy also thought speculation about the possible contract loss was already priced into the shares.  Stifel maintained a Buy rating and an $87 price target.

Ahead of the 2015 CES in Las Vegas, J.P. Morgan assigned “a high probability to SYNA's Validity technology being introduced on one or more new smartphones, with the possibility that we will see the first example of area-touch fingerprint recognition.”

Synaptics, Incorporated recently traded at $64.04, down 6.97 percent.