New York, Jan 9, 2026, 13:42 EST — Regular session
Accenture plc shares were down about 0.6% at $280.15 in early afternoon trading on Friday, after sliding to $277.77 at the session low. The broader market was higher, with exchange-traded funds tracking the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow up between about 0.4% and 0.8%.
A softer U.S. jobs report fed the push and pull for rate-sensitive stocks. Nonfarm payrolls rose 50,000 in December, below a 60,000 forecast, while the unemployment rate fell to 4.4%, the Labor Department said. “The Fed will likely hold course for now,” Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector fixed income at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, wrote in an email. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
That matters for Accenture because investors tend to treat big IT services firms as a read-through on corporate tech budgets. Lower rates can lift valuations, but a cooling labor market also puts next-quarter demand and deal timing under a harsher light.
Accenture, meanwhile, kept leaning into retail AI. The company said on Thursday it invested in Profitmind through Accenture Ventures and struck a strategic partnership around Profitmind’s “agentic AI” platform — software designed to sift data and recommend actions without waiting for humans to stitch together spreadsheets. “In retail, AI is reinventing how people shop,” said Jill Standish, Accenture’s global retail lead. Accenture said it will show a demo with Profitmind at the National Retail Federation event on Jan. 11-13, at Microsoft’s booth; terms of the investment were not disclosed. (Accenture Newsroom)
The stock has moved in quick bursts this week. Accenture rose 2.86% on Thursday to close at $281.82, outpacing gains in peers such as IBM and Cognizant, MarketWatch data showed. Even after that pop, the shares were about 29% below their 52-week high of $398.35, it said. (MarketWatch)
Investors still anchor on the last set of numbers. In December, Accenture beat Wall Street’s first-quarter revenue estimate and forecast second-quarter revenue of $17.35 billion to $18.0 billion, with the midpoint below analysts’ estimates, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters. “I am very pleased with our $21 billion in new bookings,” CEO Julie Sweet said then; bookings are a measure of orders signed. (Reuters)
But rate hopes can turn into a headwind fast. After Friday’s jobs data, traders saw just a 44% chance of a Fed cut by April and increasingly leaned toward the next move coming in June, Reuters reported — a setup that can pressure growth-heavy stocks if yields climb. (Reuters)
Next up is a dense stretch: the Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting is Jan. 27-28, and Accenture’s annual shareholders’ meeting is scheduled for Jan. 28. The company’s next major stock catalyst is its fiscal second-quarter earnings conference call on March 19, when investors will be watching bookings and whether Accenture holds to its revenue outlook. (Federal Reserve)
