• Digital advertising companies like Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Facebook Inc’s (NASDAQ: FB) shares dropped on rating downgrade by Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) from buy to neutral over the decline in ad budgets, Bloomberg reports.

• Citi gave Facebook a 0 price target and Alphabet a ,415 price target.

• Interestingly, both the companies had beat the Q1 analyst consensus.

• Citi expects a deceleration in the pandemic-induced growth in the last two quarters, jeopardizing the stock multiples.

• Citi reiterated neutral ratings on both Pinterest Inc (NYSE: PINS) and Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR), while Snap Inc (NYSE: SNAP) got a sell rating.

• Roku Inc (NASDAQ: ROKU) was the only digital-ad stock that got a buy rating due to growth prospects associated with the budding connected TV market.

• Bloomberg’s average analyst price target implies an upside of over 20% for Alphabet and 25% for Facebook.

• Last week, Bloomberg had projected an over 30% Facebook core mobile-ad business growth despite competition in the second half.

• Price action: GOOG shares traded lower by 2.31% at $2,343.18, and FB shares traded lower by 4.40% at $305.43 on the last check Monday.

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