Accenture Q3 earnings: ‘gen AI will go faster than cloud’

Accenture Plc (NYSE: ACN) is down nearly 3.0% on Thursday even though it reported market-beating results for its third financial quarter.

Why is Accenture stock down today?

The tech stock is trending down primarily because the company disclosed $17.2 billion worth of new bookings – materially below the Street estimates. CEO Julie Sweet said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”:

Nonetheless, the Fortune 500 firm remains committed to returning $7.1 billion in cash (at least) to shareholders via dividend payments and stock repurchase.

Accenture stock is still up more than 10% for the year.

Accenture’s guidance for the full year

Accenture also tightened its guidance this morning. For the full year, it now forecasts $11.52 to $11.63 of adjusted per-share earnings. According to CEO Sweet:

The Dublin-headquartered company lowered its outlook for revenue to between 8.0% and 9.0%, though. It had previously guided for up to 10% increase.

Wall Street currently has a consensus “overweight” rating on Accenture stock.

Accenture Q3 earnings snapshot

• Earned $2.01 billion versus the year-ago $1.79 billion
• Per-share earnings also climbed from $2.79 to $3.15
• Adjusted EPS printed at $3.19 as per the press release
• Revenue went up 2.5% year-on-year to $16.56 billion
• Consensus was $3.01 a share on $16.49 billion revenue

Last week, Accenture Plc announced a $3.0 billion investment into artificial intelligence. The Chief Executive added today: