Qualcomm's Stock Falls After Rating, Price Target Cut At FBR

Qualcomm Inc.'s stock shed 2.6% in premarket trade Monday, after the chip maker was downgraded at FBR & Co. on concerns over competition from Samsung. Analyst Christopher Rolland cut his rating to market perform from outperform, removed the stock from FBR's top picks list, and lowered his price target to $72 from $80. AT&T has indicated that its GS6 model phones contain a Samsung Exynos 6420 processor with a Samsung modem, after previous versions were powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform, Rolland said. And while he expects the Verizon and Sprint GS6 version phones to use Qualcomm modems, he believes AT&T's change "signals Samsung's clear intent to utilize proprietary baseband whenever and wherever possible." Qualcomm's stock has lost 8.6% year to date through Thursday, while the S&P 500 has gained 0.4%.