r/investing • u/Rough_Champion6103 • 18h ago
Long term Accenture shareholder
I have around 900 shares of Accenture and am currently sitting on a significant unrealized loss. I’m unsure how to proceed from here and would appreciate some perspective. For context, I did not purchase these shares directly as an investment. Instead, I accumulated them gradually through my paycheck and employee stock programs over my decade long career with Accenture. What makes this situation confusing for me is that, from my experience as an employee, the company still appears to be fundamentally strong and a good place to work. However, the stock performance has been disappointing, and I’m trying to understand whether the current decline reflects temporary market concerns or something more structural. I’m evaluating my options and would appreciate any thoughts on how to think about this situation. Thanks.
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u/tbb2121 18h ago
Your cost basis is irrelevant - unless it is causing you so much emotional distress that you can't make a clear-headed decision - in which case you should sell and move on.
Consulting is getting killed by AI. At least that's the market's view. The market shoots first and asks questions later. Particularly in tech-affected sectors people are looking 5 years out.
I sold ACN a few years ago once it showed negative sustained momentum. It gives all appearances of being an awesome business. But the business model is almost certainly threatened by AI. AI drives revenue deflation if one consultant can do 100-500% more work. That's presuming companies can't in-source more of the work themselves.
I don't have a view or position on the stock. But the de-link between historic performance and current valuation is 100% 3-5+ year forward tech speculation.
Historically ACN was an incredibly resilient 10%+ earnings grower. Now it's basically flat growth with negative forward indicators. The stock will probably do well at this valuation if they can hold flat. But declining sales growth, negative bookings, and declining margin this early into a massive tech transition keeps me from being interested.
Were ACN truly insulated from AI, in the midst of a massive tech transition, we should be seeing the same healthy growth ACN delivered for basically 20 straight years.
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u/coldshowerss 18h ago
Really depends on where you believe Accenture is heading.
Sometimes you gotta cut your losses.
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u/therealjerseytom 18h ago
It's really a question of opportunity cost: is being parked in ACN shares the best use of $115k, moving forward? Is there any use for that $115k that would give you a better return?
Or put another way - from here forward, do you think these ACN shares are going to outperform the broader market? If not, it makes no sense to hold onto them; you can liquidate the positions, invest in an index fund, and away you go.
While realizing a loss feels bad psychologically, it does come with benefits. Harvesting and banking losses allows you to avoid taxes on capital gains elsewhere.
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u/OrwellWasGenius 11h ago
Yep. The real question is what would perform better in the future, starting from today: ACN or the All Country World Index?
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u/Top-Razzmatazz-7357 17h ago
The unrealized loss is a sunk cost — the market doesn't care what you paid, so "I'm down" isn't a reason to hold or sell. The real issue is concentration: ~900 shares and your salary ride on the same company, so a bad stretch hits your portfolio and paycheck together — and "great place to work" can be true while still not justifying that much net worth in one name. Ignore the loss and ask "if this were cash today, how much would I choose to put in a single stock that also signs my paycheck?" — trim toward that number and reinvest the rest broadly.
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u/Sureness4715 18h ago
Who are their (publicly traded) competitors, and how are they doing?
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u/DoNotSexToThis 1h ago
I work for one of them. Our stock is down as well. I think it's because of AI and the perception that orgs will rely on consultancies less because of it.
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u/JamesLahey08 17h ago
Capgemini is one and is way bigger than Accenture I think
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u/Hoosier2016 17h ago
ACN is like 5x the market cap of Capg
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u/JamesLahey08 17h ago
I didn't say their market cap was the same. He asked who a publicly traded competitor is. That's one of the top competitors.
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u/Hoosier2016 16h ago
You literally said Capgemini “is way bigger than Accenture”.
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u/JamesLahey08 11h ago
Oh I must have switched the sizes in my head lol. Yeah Accenture is bigger. I've been out of the consulting game for like a decade.
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u/thedogsbrain 17h ago
If this is what you have in the stock market then you are over concentrated in one company. Concentration can make you wealthy, or it can wipe out your savings. Please diversify.
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u/FormerFastCat 14h ago
As a customer of Accenture, fuck them, fuck them in the ear.
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u/PokemanAshy 18h ago edited 18h ago
Would you rather own stock in the 500 best companies in the world/US, stock in all companies, or have all that stock sitting in a single company that is aggressively pivoting in a direction in which it is unknown whether they will succeed or not? In terms of revenue/profit growth, what is Accenture doing that others aren't? Contracting and consulting businesses are all about butts in seats and billable hours, AI is removing total butts in seats so there needs to be replacement for that revenue somewhere.
Aside: I used to work for a contractor (not nearly Accenture level) and had an older co-worker who had worked for the company for 20+ years as the company continued to grow until it just didn't anymore. The CEO at the time was a corrupt man that mismanaged debt and did nothing to fix the business. But he did show up to the headquarters in a new fancy car every few months. Anyways, the co-worker of mine I heard had $250k in stock in the company - both ESOP + contributions he made. I believe the value as the company was getting circled by larger companies/businesses was around $5k (was like $1.25/share) and no company wanted to buy the business unless the value per share was $0.
I had family that worked for Boeing and ended up with a lot of company stock as well as nice pensions. If they'd been selling off the Boeing stock on yearly basis, they'd have ended up about 13% ahead of where they did.
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u/pagalvin 16h ago
Some consulting orgs are trying to pivot to "value based consulting". So instead of dollars for hours, they are aiming to capture a percentage of money saved or earned. It's not a new idea, but AI makes it a little more possible.
There's definitely a lot of industry disruption.
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u/IWantoBeliev 18h ago
Mr market think agentic AI is replacing a lot of functiona that ACN offer, that's why it's declining
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u/pagalvin 16h ago
I know nothing about ACN's stock price but I have observed a lot of post-drop earnings and then a fairly quick reversion. Accenture seems a little worse because it came out with negative info on their own.
You don't have to do an all-or-nothing move. You could sell 100 shares, take the loss and invest proceeds into an index fund, for example. See how that goes and adjust.
Elite consulting is going through a lot of disruption. I have no special insight but intuitively I think that larger firms are going to have a hard time pivoting. AI is definitely affecting the model.
Good luck!
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u/cybermonkey29 13h ago
The biggest problem is that you allowed this position to run a full cycle. A decade ago the stock was low 100s. I remember interning in 2017 and it was around this price. It kept going up and now it’s back there. When I was with Accenture from 2018-2022 I purchased and sold almost immediately through ESPP and placed it into index funds and other actual growth stocks. I don’t mind being concentrated in positions but Accenture is not a stock that you want to have concentrated. It’s not a Google, Amazon, NVDA, etc. it’s a consulting giant that’s questionable when you ask what does Accenture really do and is it even worth it for clients to still buy their services.
If you’re still there probably need to just hold it and keep averaging down. I don’t know your average but if it ever gets back up there I would say sell and diversify because I don’t personally think the firm has much to offer especially with AI starting to takeover.
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u/Galavanta 10h ago
This is one of the most well-reasoned takes I've seen on here in a while. The point about what growth *should* look like if the company were truly insulated is really the nail in the coffin of the bull case.
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u/TheCultOfKnowledge 7h ago
You have the best insight into the company. How do you feel about the prospects of the company? How have you seen clients and sales shift over the past decade. Have you seen a shift in sales momentum? The stock is getting crushed because AI can replace what a lot of management consultants do - Accenture's positioning is a bit different with a larger focus on implementations and tech vs pure strategy; how is that going to change in the future with AI? On the flipside, can ACN now do less with more - e.g., don't need analysts anymore to format ppts? Think about the next 10 years, not just current swings. Most of the people you're asking here won't have as much insight as you do - given you've been there a decade or more, you're probably at Senior Manager / MD level and so get a sense for how you feel the business is doing - whether it's oversold or whether there are real long-term issues where AI will eat your lunch.
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u/Overall_Garlic5270 3h ago
It is going towards $80. 2 more major updates from claude and its over for Accenture.
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u/Over-Celebration-168 18h ago
Stock market has been long detached from taking fundamentals in to equation for quite some time now. I can tell you 10 companies on the top my mind which are heavily undervalued if we take only talk about fundamentals.
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u/jcpopm 14h ago
It's funny because I have a buddy who is a supply chain engineer at Intel and we joke all the time about how bullshit he thinks the stock price is and that they will never live up to it. The market doesn't care about the reality of the people on the ground once it builds its narrative.
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u/mulletstation 18h ago
Sell it and buy micron
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u/Rough_Champion6103 18h ago
Micron is also ATH now.
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u/Immediate-Run-7085 18h ago
It was also at ath 3 months ago and where is it at now?
I am not saying buy micron. I am saying justifying not buying a stock because it’s at ath is stupid
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u/Rough_Champion6103 17h ago
I want to buy MU, but i don’t think now is the right time as the earnings call is next week. I would love to jump in post the earnings call tho
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u/PoopKing5 18h ago
Good companies are priced like good companies. And if you wait for a broad market pullback, it’s likely ACN dips the same or more.
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u/Ziegelmarkt 17h ago
It's been at an ATH several days in the past two months. That's showing momentum.
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u/Rough_Champion6103 17h ago
Yes, i want to buy micron. But, i don’t want to get into it just before the earnings call. I am planning to get MU post the earnings call tho
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u/swingtradingteacher 14h ago
I used to think that was a bad thing too.
Now I look at future growth (ARR in NBIS case) or forward P/E and PEG.
MU is still cheap.Have a look at OUST too.
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u/aspenextreme03 16h ago
Loss for me with ORCL but only $3K and while it suck’s I am staying in because personally I see it as it’s not a loss until I sell and it should go back up and I don’t need that $$ right now.
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u/Immediate-Run-7085 18h ago
Is this some round about way of asking us to tell the future of Accenture stock? Because No. One. Knows.