Affirm downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at Piper Sandler

Piper Sandler downgraded Affirm to Underweight from Neutral with an unchanged price target of $11. The analyst expects persistently higher interest rates to pressure operating margins, saying Affirm needs to hold more loans on its balance sheet. In addition, tighter underwriting standards, increased pricing, and the re-introduction of student debt payments will cause an incremental slowdown in the company’s revenue growth over the next year, the analyst tells investors in a research note. As such, the firm believes it will be difficult for Affirm to generate the 24% revenue growth implied by consensus estimates.