Ariba: Cowen Downgrades, Stock Swoons

Ariba (ARBA) shares are down sharply this morning after Cowen’s Peter Goldmacher cut his rating on the stock to Neutral from Outperform.

Goldmacher writes that he remains a fan of the story, but that he is concerned that consensus expectations for organic bookings growth, “the best measure of the health of the business,” are too aggressive. In a research note, he asserts that the customers most likely to drive growth at the company “are taking an increasingly conservative approach to deploying new technology, potentially limiting margin upside to ‘09 estimates.”

ARBA today is down $2.22, or 14.7%, to $12.90.