Peloton’s ‘challenging post-pandemic trajectory’ sparks downgrade of its stock

Shares of Peloton Interactive Inc. were off 1.8% in premarket trading Tuesday after Cowen & Co. analyst John Blackledge lowered his rating on shares of the connected-fitness company to market perform from outperform. Blackledge cited the company’s “challenging post-pandemic trajectory and demand uncertainty amid turnaround effort.” He wrote that macroeconomic pressures are likely to linger in the short run, putting more inflationary pressure on consumers. “We think consumers are likely to continue to prefer out-of-home experiences in the near-term and believe Peloton is still working through pandemic pull-forward,” Blackledge wrote. He also noted that there is “limited visibility” into Peloton’s trajectory for fiscal 2023 given that the company “somewhat understandably” hasn’t offered a full-year forecast for subscribers or revenue. He added that Peloton’s treadmill “and other hardware launches haven’t performed as well as we had forecast.” Blackledge trimmed his price target to $12 from $14 on shares of Peloton, which have fallen 73% so far in 2022 as the S&P 500 has lost 17%.

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