New York, March 1, 2026, 14:58 EST — Market is done for the day
Synopsys (SNPS.O) faces renewed headwinds going into Monday, as Morgan Stanley downgraded the chip-design software company to Equal-Weight from Overweight and slashed its price target to $480, down from $550. Shares closed Friday at $414, losing 2.8%.
Timing is key here, as investors try to separate underlying demand from acquisition-driven bumps—China’s export curbs are still dampening sentiment in the background. Another batch of big notes coming next week could shift the mood fast.
Friday saw Synopsys shares deepen their post-earnings slump, dropping around 8% in just two sessions. The stock swung between $404.53 and $417.15 during the day, with trading volume hitting approximately 4.65 million shares.
Stocks struggled, with the S&P 500 down 0.43% and the Dow losing 1.05%. Synopsys underperformed both, still trading roughly 36% beneath its 52-week peak of $651.73 from late July.
Morgan Stanley highlighted a slowdown in core EDA growth—excluding Ansys—and warned that competition likely won’t let up in segments like 3D-IC and emulation systems. March 11 is marked as a key date, with Synopsys set to speak to investors at its Converge event.
Synopsys generates revenue from design IP — short for “intellectual property” — which are pre-built circuit blocks available for chipmakers to license rather than develop themselves. This segment is sensitive to consumer-device demand swings, and can be affected by export regulations dictating chip design locations.
Synopsys turned in first-quarter revenue of $2.409 billion and non-GAAP earnings of $3.77 a share, according to its SEC filing. The company stuck with its full-year revenue outlook of $9.61 billion at the midpoint, which factors in $2.9 billion from Ansys. CEO Sassine Ghazi pointed to “AI continues to fuel robust system-level and semiconductor R&D.” Synopsys also refreshed its buyback authorization, giving it room to repurchase up to $2.0 billion in stock. SEC
CFO Shelagh Glaser told the earnings call, “Excluding Ansys, China revenue declined slightly year-over-year, consistent with our outlook,” following a slowdown in some new chip-design projects due to U.S. export restrictions. Ansys brought in approximately $886 million to first-quarter revenue, according to Reuters. Reuters
Cadence Design Systems (CDNS.O) edged up 1.28% to finish at $301.40 on Friday, bucking the trend among peers. The move has fueled fresh questions: are investors chasing Cadence’s specific growth profile, or is this simply headline-driven rotation?
At its inaugural Converge event in Santa Clara, Synopsys is set to lay out how the integration with Ansys will actually work going forward. “We’re excited because we’re bringing together all the partners and customers on the classic Synopsys side along with the Ansys side,” Glaser told Investor’s Business Daily. Investors.com
Buybacks don’t guarantee support for the stock: the repurchase plan “authorizes, but does not obligate” the company to step in, and management can pause or scrap it whenever they choose, according to a Form 8-K. Should China reimpose restrictions or if cross-sell and product partnership benefits are slow to materialize, the risk scenario remains possible. SEC
March 11 is circled now—Synopsys has CEO Sassine Ghazi slated for a Converge keynote that day, according to the event agenda. Coming off a downgrade this week and ending Friday with a steep slide, traders are on alert for specifics: growth levers, pricing clarity, and any sign that “silicon-to-systems” hype is converting to signed deals. synopsys.com
