Gartner price target lowered to $440 from $447 at Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley analyst Toni Kaplan lowered the firm’s price target on Gartner to $440 from $447 and keeps an Equal Weight rating on the shares following quarterly results. The firm notes Gartner missed on weaker-than-expected CV growth in Q1 as the difficult selling environment continued. While Gartner had previously flagged soft expectations for Q1 CV given the seasonally low quarter for new business sales and elevated tech vendor renewals in the quarter, the pressure was more than anticipated by investors, Morgan Stanley adds. Gartner expects CV to bottom coming off of either Q1 or Q2 2024. However, with macro headwinds, difficult VC funding environment, lower web traffic visitors to Gartner’s websites, and further renewals from the 2021/2022 vintage coming, the firm continues to skew cautious on calling the bottom.