New York, June 15, 2026, 13:03 (EDT)
- Accenture got cut to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley, with analyst James Faucette also slashing the price target to $177 from $240.
- Jefferies cut its price target on Accenture to $185 from $210 and maintained a Hold rating.
- The stock hovered near $169. Investors remain uncertain about the speed at which AI projects are lifting overall IT services demand.
Accenture shares slipped Monday after Morgan Stanley analyst James Faucette cut the stock to Equal Weight from Overweight. Faucette pointed to slower budgets and AI spending as headwinds for traditional tech consulting. He also dropped his price target to $177 from $240, TipRanks/The Fly reported.
Morgan Stanley says companies aren’t spending less on AI, but they are moving dollars from other areas to fund it. The bank’s first-quarter 2026 CIO Survey shows IT services budgets up just 2% from a year ago. Total IT budgets went to 3.7%, barely above 3.6% in 2025, according to Investing.com UK. Morgan Stanley added that pilot project returns haven’t been strong enough to drive a bigger spending jump.
Jefferies cut its Accenture price target to $185 from $210, MarketScreener wrote. The Hold rating is unchanged. According to MarketBeat, the new target points to an upside of about 10% from the last close. Accenture shares most recently traded at $168.89, off 0.8% in the session. The stock moved between $166.94 and $173.53 earlier.
ACN shares keep sliding. Accenture has dropped 43.9% in the last year, finishing at $170.28, data from Simply Wall St shows. Investors are questioning the strength of the IT services business and the outlook for consulting and cloud growth. JPMorgan, TD Cowen, Wells Fargo, Stifel, and Truist all lowered targets or ratings for Accenture in June, pointing to those same risks.
Accenture reported second-quarter fiscal 2026 revenue of $18.04 billion, rising 8% in U.S. dollars and 4% in local currency. New bookings totaled $22.11 billion. Chair and CEO Julie Sweet called it “strong AI-driven growth” in the team’s March release. Accenture kept its full-year revenue growth target in local currency at 3% to 5%. SEC
Accenture’s Q3 2026 earnings call is set for June 18 at 8:00 a.m. ET. Investors want to see if AI is actually driving bigger, more profitable deals instead of just small pilots. They’re also looking to hear if new spending on AI points to budget growth or if companies are simply shifting funds from other projects.
