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Accenture (ACN) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Accenture (ACN - Free Report) closed at $345.07 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.32% move from the prior day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 0.84% gain on the day. At the same time, the Dow added 1.06%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.1%.

Heading into today, shares of the consulting company had lost 7.79% over the past month, lagging the Business Services sector's loss of 6.19% and the S&P 500's loss of 4.03% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Accenture as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be March 17, 2022. In that report, analysts expect Accenture to post earnings of $2.36 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 16.26%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $14.66 billion, up 21.31% from the year-ago period.

ACN's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $10.54 per share and revenue of $59.85 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +19.77% and +18.44%, respectively.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Accenture. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. Accenture is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

In terms of valuation, Accenture is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 32.63. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 20.33.

It is also worth noting that ACN currently has a PEG ratio of 3.26. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. Consulting Services stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.13 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Consulting Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 72, putting it in the top 29% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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