Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Index ended its two-day winning streak after sliding 0.44% to $5,480.68. Wall Street was all red at the close. Slumping chip stocks pulled down the Nasdaq Composite (-0.56%). The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.22%) and S&P 500 (-0.33%) started strong but eventually gave up gains.
Super Micro Computer (Nasdaq: SMCI) plunged 32.68% after Ernst & Young resigned as its auditor amid the US Justice Department’s investigation of the IT company’s accounting practices. Advanced Micro Devices (Nasdaq: AMD) declined 10.62% due to a lower revenue forecast for Q4 2024. Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL)(Nasdaq: GOOG) rose nearly 3% due to the substantial Google cloud revenue and net income growth of 35% and 34% in Q3 2024 from a year ago.
The GovCon Index finished lower mid-week as decliners outnumber gainers. Accenture (NYSE: ACN) tanked 4.54%, the worst drop among 21 losers. However, Parsons (NYSE: PSN) popped 4.73% to lead nine advancers. The stock hit a new 52-week high of $112.19 in intra-day trading before settling at $110.
In the three months ending Sept. 30, 2024, Parsons’ revenue and net income climbed 28% and 52% year-over-year to $1.8 billion and $72 million. Total contract awards rose 24% to $1.8 billion versus Q3 2023, a third-quarter record. Because of the strong operating performance, the multinational engineering firm raised its full-year revenue guidance to $6.6 billion and $6.8 billion.
Accenture received a downgrade from Exane BNP Paribas to neutral from outperform due to slower growth recovery. Nonetheless, its subsidiary announced receiving a task order of up to $1.6 billion from the US Air Force’s multi-cloud Cloud One environment. Accenture Federal Services will serve as a managed service provider for cloud account services and provide enterprise-scale software support foundational to the Cloud One modernization objective.
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (Nasdaq: KTOS) fell 2.48% after B. Riley Financial downgraded the defense stock from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ citing limited near-term upside potential. Still, it increased the price target to $26. KTOS currently trades at $23.59 per share.
Boeing (NYSE: BA) advanced 0.86% despite a downgrade and lower price target to $169 by Bernstein Research analyst Douglas Harned. The plane maker sold common and depository shares, raising $21 billion to boost liquidity. Negotiations with striking union members also resumed Tuesday.
