Slack (NYSE:WORK) is in the news Friday after a downgrade caused WORK stock to head lower.
The downgrade for WORK stock comes from Goldman Sachs analyst Heather Bellini. This has her dropping the stock from its previous “neutral” rating to a new “sell” rating. However, the analysts left the stock’s price target at $30 per share.
So why exactly is the Goldman Sachs analyst taking a bearish stance on Slack? Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is the source of the analysts’ concerns and is responsible for today’s downgrade to WORK stock.
Microsoft has been boosting its own work communication service, Microsoft Teams. Bellini believes that this will put additional pressure on Slack. She specifically points to Microsoft Teams leveraging “its packaging within Office 365 to drive increased adoption.”
It’s worth pointing out that the Goldman Sachs analyst isn’t the only one with these fears. Other analysts have also been more critical of WORK stock lately for many of the same reasons as Bellini presents, reports TheStreet.com.
This isn’t the first Slack news with threats of increasing competition from Microsoft Teams taking a bite out of WORK stock. Similar movement happened a couple of weeks ago when the company dropped its earnings report.
At that time, Slack announced the withdrawal of calculated billings guidance for fiscal 2021. Another Slack news release that same day saw it teaming up with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) to bolster its services. That caused concerns among investors that the moves were in reaction to the growing competition from Microsoft Teams.
WORK stock was down 3.1% as of Friday afternoon.
As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
