What happened
Accenture (ACN -0.32%) is one company that's surely glad the trading week is over. The consultancy's share price continued its fall on Friday, losing another 2.9% in value. This was a notably worse performance than the S&P 500 index's 0.8% slide. Several analysts cut their price targets on the stock, with one going so far as to downgrade his recommendation.
So what
The downgrading party was TD Cowen's Bryan Bergin, who now feels Accenture is worthy of a market perform (hold, in other words) instead of his previous outperform (buy). With the downgrade came a price target cut; this is now $300 per share, down from Bergin's former $325.
In a new note on the stock, the prognosticator wrote that the latest fundamentals from the company indicate a "further deterioration in demand signals that yields incremental uncertainty and estimate risk."
Several of Bergin's peers in the analyst community cut their price targets on Accenture stock, although they didn't go as far as to change their recommendations. Among the cutters was BMO Capital's Keith Bachman -- his new level on the shares is $355 apiece; formerly it stood at $365. He kept his market perform (hold) recommendation intact.
Now what
Those adjustments came one day after Accenture unveiled its latest set of quarterly earnings. While the company beat on both revenue and non-GAAP profitability in its third quarter of fiscal 2023, an unforgiving market was concerned by a slight lowering of revenue guidance for the entirety of the fiscal year.
This might be somewhat of an overreaction, since numerous metrics in Accenture's earnings report indicated growth. Perhaps the sell-off will provide an opportunity to snap up the company's shares at a discount.
