Accenture before quarterly figures: Will the global service company make a statement?

Investors are keeping a close eye on Accenture's upcoming quarterly results, which will be released this week. In the previous quarter, the company exceeded analysts' revenue forecasts by 2.3% and reported revenues of $17.73 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 7.7%. Expectations for earnings per share (EPS) were also surpassed, while projections for the upcoming quarter met analysts' expectations. In the current quarter, analysts anticipate revenue growth of 5.9% compared to the previous year, an improvement over the 2.6% growth in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to reach a value of $2.97 per share. Notably, the majority of analysts have reaffirmed their estimates in the last 30 days, indicating stable business expectations. However, Accenture has missed Wall Street's revenue expectations three times in the past two years. With the release of the quarterly results, Accenture signals the start of the earnings season among IT and technology stocks. Although there are no comparison values from other companies yet, investor sentiment in this segment appears positive, reflected in an average stock price increase of 4.6% over the past four weeks. Accenture, on the other hand, recorded a decline of 7.7% over the same period and holds an average analyst price target of $305.23, compared to the current stock price of $236.44. The emergence of generative artificial intelligence is already showing clear impacts on the business strategies of large companies. While Nvidia and AMD are trading near their all-time highs, some investors prefer less well-known yet profitable semiconductor companies that benefit from this AI boom.