Morgan Stanley Has Overweight Rating On Accenture (ACN)

Morgan Stanley Has Overweight Rating On Accenture (ACN) Morgan Stanley has an Overweight rating and a $56 price target on shares of Accenture ACN. In a note to investors, Morgan Stanley writes, "Although F2Q faces relatively easy yoy comps and the Euro has strengthened recently, Feb is a seasonally softer quarter and consensus ests are within the guided range (albeit at the higher end). Therefore, we don't think that investors will look for a big top-line beat (nor do we expect one). Instead, we think that most people will look for Accenture to demonstrate healthy growth in demand by putting up another set of solid business metrics. We believe bookings will remain solid (we estimate consulting/outsourcing of $3.4 (+6.6% TTM yoy) and $2.7B (+3.3% TTM yoy), respectively), headcount growth of 19% yoy, and for mgmt's commentary to support our thesis for improving global IT demand trends (3 key drivers: remnants of pent-up demand, companies investing for growth, and new tech (i.e. cloud, mobility, etc.) Given this is the first year of a Feb-qtr dividend, we have no basis on whether to expect an increase and don't think investors will view a “no change” as a negative." Shares of ACN gained 10 cents yesterday to close at $50.35, a gain of 0.2.%.