Accenture Best Day; Nike After Close; Constellation Amazon Nuclear

Good evening. This is Trade and Ticker. Thursday, October first, twenty twenty-six. Your evening company deep dive after the close.

Three names tonight, and they carry Thursday’s story after Wall Street wrapped. First, Accenture — the consulting and technology-services giant that reported fiscal fourth-quarter results this morning, beat the Street on revenue and earnings, guided for three-to-six percent growth next year, and watched its stock surge around twenty percent in what looks like its best day on record. Second, Nike — which reported fiscal first-quarter results after the bell, beat on earnings, missed on sales, guided for another year of high-single-digit revenue decline, and rolled out a multi-year operating plan called Pace. Third, Constellation Energy — which locked a twenty-year power purchase agreement with Amazon at Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant, adding capacity and supporting more than three billion dollars of investment in the state. One A-I services rebound, one consumer turnaround after the close, and one nuclear-and-power deal tied to the data-center buildout. If you only have half an hour tonight, these three get you through Thursday.

A quick board first, then the deep dives. Midday you heard stocks modestly lower as Treasury yields spiked to multi-decade highs. After Wall Street wrapped, the picture flipped. Equities rebounded to finish modestly higher as those yields retreated from the peak. The S-and-P led, finishing about two-tenths of a percent higher. The Dow and the Nasdaq finished roughly flat to slightly higher — a few hundredths of a percent each. That is a recovery tape, not a melt-up: early losses, afternoon buyers, and a close that looked calmer than the morning felt. The driver was still the cost of money. Initial jobless claims came in at one hundred ninety-seven thousand. The I-S-M manufacturing index printed fifty-four-point-five, still expanding, with Prices Paid jumping to seventy-seven-point-nine. The ten-year Treasury yield had touched multi-decade highs above five-point-three percent, then eased as buyers stepped back in and Fed commentary leaned patient on the next hike. October hike odds cooled further from where they sat at lunch. Oil was higher on Middle East and supply headlines, and energy was among the firmer sectors into the close. Against that backdrop, Accenture was the session standout, Nike delivered the after-close consumer print, and Constellation’s Amazon nuclear deal traded through the day. One quick continuity note: Micron, our deep dive last night, finished higher as the market kept buying the memory and A-I hardware story — we are not replaying that print tonight. Let’s start with Accenture.

Accenture.

Accenture is the global consulting and managed-services company that helps enterprises reinvent — digital core, industry work, and increasingly A-I. This morning it reported fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year twenty twenty-six results for the period ended August thirty-first, and the stock exploded higher. That is the story of the regular session. The fear coming into this print was that generative A-I would hollow out consulting billable hours and that federal work would stay under pressure. The print and the guide pushed back on that narrative hard enough that buyers treated the day like a reset.

Start with the quarter. Revenue was eighteen-point-six-eight billion dollars, up six percent in U.S. dollars and seven percent in local currency. That cleared the top of Accenture’s own guided range of seventeen-point-seven-five to eighteen-point-four-zero billion, and it cleared the Street’s roughly eighteen-point-zero-three-billion consensus. Consulting was nine-point-two-eight billion. Managed Services was nine-point-four-zero billion. Growth was broad — Americas, E-M-E-A, and Asia Pacific all contributed in local currency, and every industry group was higher. G-A-A-P diluted earnings per share were three dollars and twenty-nine cents, up forty-six percent from the year-ago G-A-A-P print and up nine percent from the adjusted year-ago number of three dollars and three cents. That also cleared the Street’s roughly three-dollars-and-eighteen-cents consensus. Operating margin on a G-A-A-P basis was fifteen-point-three percent. Free cash flow in the quarter was about two-point-eight-five billion. Put that in plain English: Accenture beat its own range, beat the Street, and kept profitability expanding while it was still investing.

Bookings are the forward tell for a services firm. New bookings in the fourth quarter were twenty-two-point-one-seven billion dollars, up four percent in dollars and five percent in local currency, with a book-to-bill of one-point-two. Consulting bookings were nine-point-four-zero billion. Managed Services bookings were twelve-point-seven-seven billion with a book-to-bill of one-point-four — so the longer-duration work is still filling faster than it is converting to revenue. Chair and C-E-O Julie Sweet highlighted a new high of one hundred forty-one quarterly client bookings of one hundred million dollars or more. That is the mega-deal count investors watch when they ask whether A-I is stealing Accenture’s lunch or creating more transformation work. One hundred forty-one is not a company scraping for small change.

The full year makes the same point at scale. Fiscal twenty twenty-six revenue was seventy-four-point-one-eight billion dollars, up six percent in dollars and five percent in local currency. Adjusted earnings per share were thirteen dollars and ninety-seven cents, up eight percent. G-A-A-P earnings were thirteen dollars and fifty-six cents, up twelve percent. Free cash flow for the year was eleven-point-six-two billion. Accenture returned a record eleven-point-five billion dollars to shareholders — about seven-point-five billion in buybacks and about four billion in dividends — up thirty-eight percent from the prior year. The board raised the quarterly dividend five percent to one dollar and seventy-one cents, payable November thirteenth to holders of record October thirteenth. Beat the quarter, grow the year, return cash, lift the dividend. That is the package buyers were missing earlier this year.

Guidance is why the stock went vertical. For fiscal twenty twenty-seven, Accenture expects local-currency revenue growth of three to six percent. G-A-A-P diluted earnings per share of fourteen dollars and thirty-nine cents to fourteen dollars and eighty-one cents — which is three to six percent growth over adjusted fiscal twenty twenty-six earnings, or six to nine percent over the G-A-A-P base. Operating margin guided to fifteen-point-nine to sixteen-point-one percent. Shareholder returns of at least nine-point-five billion. For the first quarter alone, revenue is guided to eighteen-point-nine-five to nineteen-point-six-zero billion, or two to six percent growth in local currency. That full-year band sat above what many on the Street had been modeling after the spring cut and the A-I disruption debate. Julie Sweet’s message was trust, reinvention, and innovation — clients still paying Accenture to help them reinvent, not walking away because of A-I tools. The market heard: the A-I scare got ahead of the bookings.

On the tape, Accenture surged around twenty percent and traded as if it were having its best day on record. This was a large-cap reset day in software and services. Cognizant and I-B-M were among the firmer peers earlier. Even after the surge, Accenture is still down meaningfully year to date — the year-to-date drawdown is still in the high teens after a much deeper slide earlier in twenty twenty-six — so today’s bid is a relief rally inside a still-wounded multiple, not a victory lap that erases the whole A-I debate. The debate just got a lot more two-sided.

Into the next few weeks, watch three things on Accenture. First, whether the three-to-six percent fiscal twenty twenty-seven growth band holds as the new Street floor, or whether bulls stretch it higher after one good print. Second, whether those one-hundred-million-plus bookings keep printing and whether Managed Services book-to-bill stays above one — that is the durability check on A-I-led transformation demand. Third, whether the federal and public-sector sleeve stops being the drag that forced the spring cut, or whether commercial A-I work has to carry the whole guide. For a name that spent much of the year priced as if consulting were obsolete, today was the market admitting the model still works — for now — at seventy-four billion of revenue and eleven-plus billion of free cash flow.

Accenture in one breath: fourth-quarter revenue eighteen-point-six-eight billion above the high end of guidance; G-A-A-P earnings three dollars twenty-nine cents; bookings twenty-two-point-one-seven billion with book-to-bill one-point-two; one hundred forty-one deals of one hundred million or more; full-year revenue seventy-four billion; adjusted earnings thirteen ninety-seven; dividend up five percent to one seventy-one; fiscal twenty twenty-seven local-currency growth three to six percent; stock surged around twenty percent. A-I fear met a bookings and guide answer. That is the primary deep dive.

From consulting’s best day to the sneaker and apparel giant after the bell — Nike.

Nike.

Nike is the world’s leading athletic footwear and apparel company, and after the close it reported fiscal first-quarter twenty twenty-seven results for the period ended August thirty-first. The stock had been a bit higher into the print and still sits near multi-year lows, so tonight’s numbers and the turnaround language mattered into Friday’s jobs report. What came out was a mixed quarter with a cautious year: earnings beat, sales missed, China still under pressure, and a new multi-year operating plan that promises savings while management repositions Sportswear, Jordan Brand, and Greater China.

Start with the scoreboard. Revenue was eleven-point-two-one-three billion dollars, down four percent on a reported basis and down five percent currency-neutral. That missed the Street’s roughly eleven-point-three-billion consensus. Diluted earnings per share were forty-eight cents, down a penny from forty-nine cents a year ago, but ahead of a mid-forties consensus that was looking for something closer to forty-four cents. Net income was seven hundred twelve million, down two percent. Gross margin expanded sixty basis points to forty-two-point-eight percent, helped mainly by lower warehousing and logistics costs. Selling and administrative expense fell three percent to three-point-nine billion — demand creation up five percent on brand marketing around key sports events, operating overhead down six percent on wages and admin. Inventories were seven-point-eight billion, down three percent. Cash and short-term investments were eight-point-four billion. So Nike made the quarter look better on the bottom line and on margin while the top line kept shrinking.

Where the revenue went tells you why the stock is still a turnaround story. Nike Brand revenue was eleven-point-zero billion, down four percent. North America grew two percent to about five-point-one billion — wholesale there was firm, Direct softer. Europe, Middle East and Africa fell five percent. Greater China was the open wound: one-point-one-eight billion, down twenty-two percent reported and twenty-six percent currency-neutral, with footwear and apparel both sharply lower. Asia Pacific and Latin America were roughly flat to slightly lower. Converse fell twenty-eight percent to two hundred sixty-three million. On the channel cut, Nike Brand wholesale was about six-point-eight billion, down one percent. Nike Direct was four-point-one billion, down eight percent reported and nine percent currency-neutral — digital down thirteen percent, Nike-owned stores down five percent. When Direct and China are both contracting that hard, the Sport Offense story has to work harder in North America performance to carry the brand.

C-E-O Elliott Hill said the Sport Offense is driving measurable progress across the performance business, and that Nike introduced Pace to accelerate and scale that momentum. He was blunt on the rest: more work to do in Nike Sportswear, Jordan Brand, and Greater China, with deliberate actions to strengthen those businesses for the long term. C-F-O Dave Denton said the first quarter was consistent with expectations, supported by improved gross margin and disciplined cost management, and that the focus is product-portfolio health, productivity, and disciplined capital allocation. That is not a victory-lap call. That is a rebuild call.

Pace is the new operating-model name you will hear for years. It builds on the cost realignment plan from March twenty twenty-six. Nike says Pace includes modernizing the global supply chain, establishing a new campus in India for enterprise capabilities, realigning to three geographies, and further streamlining the organization. The company expects about two-point-five billion dollars in cumulative savings through fiscal twenty thirty-one, with about one billion of pretax charges through that window — on top of about three hundred million of severance already recognized in fiscal twenty twenty-six — and about three hundred million of charges expected in fiscal twenty twenty-seven. Savings estimates are before reinvestment. In plain English: Nike is cutting and reorganizing while it tries to fix the lifestyle and China engines that used to print growth.

The outlook is where after-hours traders vote. For fiscal twenty twenty-seven, Nike expects revenues to decline high-single digits. Adjusted diluted earnings per share are guided to one dollar and fifteen cents to one dollar and thirty-five cents, excluding about fifteen cents of Pace restructuring expenses. The effective tax rate is expected in the mid-twenties. That is not a snapback year. That is another year of shrinking the top line while management tries to protect a cleaned-up earnings base. After hours, the stock was lower — down a few percent in early trading after the release. Buyers did not treat the earnings beat as enough when the sales miss and the high-single-digit decline guide were on the same page.

Why Nike earns a deep-dive slot tonight: it is a mega-cap consumer name near multi-year lows, reporting into Friday’s payrolls, with a new C-E-O still early in a turnaround, China still contracting more than twenty percent, Direct still shrinking, and a multi-year savings program that has to prove it can fund the Sport Offense without starving brand heat. Margin expansion and an earnings beat buy credibility on cost. They do not by themselves answer whether Greater China and Sportswear stabilize in twenty twenty-seven. The call at five o’clock Eastern is where Hill and Denton have to put more color on China inventory, wholesale reorder rates, and how Pace timing hits the P-and-L.

Into tomorrow and the next prints, watch three things on Nike. First, whether Greater China commentary on the call sounds like a bottoming process or another multi-quarter rebuild — twenty-six percent currency-neutral declines do not fix overnight. Second, whether North America performance strength in the Sport Offense can offset Sportswear and Jordan repositioning long enough for the Direct channel to stop shrinking in the mid-teens on digital. Third, how the Street models that one-fifteen to one-thirty-five adjusted earnings guide against a high-single-digit revenue decline — and whether Friday’s jobs report and the broader consumer tape give Nike any air cover into next week. For a brand this large, the question is no longer whether the quarter was a little better than feared on earnings. The question is when revenue stops going the wrong way.

Nike in one breath: first-quarter revenue eleven-point-two billion, down four percent, miss versus roughly eleven-point-three billion; earnings forty-eight cents, beat versus mid-forties consensus; gross margin forty-two-point-eight percent, up sixty basis points; Greater China down about twenty-six percent currency-neutral; Nike Direct down eight to nine percent; Pace targeting two-point-five billion of savings through fiscal twenty thirty-one; fiscal twenty twenty-seven revenue decline high-single digits; adjusted earnings guide one fifteen to one thirty-five; stock lower after hours. Earnings beat, sales miss, rebuild still the story. That is the second deep dive.

From sneakers after the bell to the nuclear plant powering the grid — Constellation Energy.

Constellation Energy.

Constellation is the largest private-sector power producer in the United States and the country’s biggest nuclear operator, and late Wednesday it announced a twenty-year power purchase agreement with Amazon tied to Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs Clean Energy Center. The stock traded the deal on Thursday and finished about two to three percent higher. This is the hyperscaler-meets-nuclear story in one state: Amazon wants long-term carbon-free power for its regional footprint; Constellation wants revenue certainty to uprate, relicense, and invest.

Here is the structure. The agreement covers six hundred ninety megawatts of power from Calvert Cliffs, including about one hundred ninety megawatts of new uprate capacity expected online between twenty thirty and twenty thirty-two. Calvert Cliffs is a one-thousand-seven-hundred-ninety-megawatt plant in Lusby on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay — Maryland’s only nuclear plant and, by Constellation’s telling, the state’s largest source of clean energy, producing enough electricity to power the equivalent of more than one-point-three million homes. The deal is framed as enabling more than three billion dollars in Maryland infrastructure investment, including plant-wide improvements and that uprate. Amazon’s long-term commitment is also described as helping Constellation relicense the plant for another twenty years and make progress toward new clean energy development at the site. Separately, the parties entered a related retail supply agreement to support Amazon operations across the thirteen-state P-J-M market. All electricity from Calvert Cliffs continues to flow to the P-J-M regional grid — so this is not a behind-the-meter island plant; it is a grid-connected nuclear asset with a contracted offtake and a retail sleeve for Amazon.

Joe Dominguez, Constellation’s chairman, president, and C-E-O, said the agreement shows how private investment can strengthen critical energy infrastructure, supports long-term operation of Calvert Cliffs, and creates a foundation for future investment including advanced nuclear. Kerry Person, vice president of A-W-S Global Operations and Data Center Delivery at Amazon, said Amazon is investing in carbon-free energy to strengthen the grid, and that the deal sustains Maryland’s largest carbon-free source, supports hundreds of jobs, and brings new generation to the regional grid. That is the political and community package sitting next to the megawatt math: taxes, jobs, relicensing, and grid reliability in a region where data-center load is the new demand story.

Why this matters beyond utility desks: every major cloud and A-I buildout is hunting for firm, carbon-free megawatts that do not depend on the weather. Nuclear is back in the conversation because it runs around the clock. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and others have been circling existing nuclear fleets and potential restarts for more than a year. Constellation already sits at the center of that trade as the largest U.S. nuclear owner. A twenty-year Amazon PPA with an explicit uprate and relicensing path is how you turn that narrative into contracted cash flow and a Capex story the Street can model. Risks are the usual nuclear and regulatory ones — uprate execution between twenty thirty and twenty thirty-two, relicensing process, P-J-M market rules, and whether three billion dollars of Maryland investment lands on time and on budget. None of that erases the strategic signal: Amazon is willing to underwrite nuclear capacity for two decades in the mid-Atlantic.

On the tape, Constellation was higher by about two to three percent as the deal traded through the session. Amazon itself was not the story of the day on a percentage basis — Accenture was — but Amazon as offtaker is the credibility stamp on the press release. Energy as a sector was firmer into the close with oil higher, so Constellation had a friendly tape behind the idiosyncratic news.

Into the next months, watch three things on Constellation. First, any firmer timeline or regulatory milestones on the one-hundred-ninety-megawatt uprate and the relicensing clock. Second, whether more hyperscaler P-P-As follow at other Constellation nuclear sites — one Amazon deal can be a template or a one-off. Third, how P-J-M capacity and retail margins around the Amazon sleeve show up in Constellation’s next earnings guide. For a nuclear name trading as an A-I power proxy, contracted megawatts beat slide-deck megawatts.

Constellation in one breath: twenty-year Amazon power purchase agreement at Calvert Cliffs; six hundred ninety megawatts including about one hundred ninety of uprate capacity in twenty thirty to twenty thirty-two; more than three billion dollars of Maryland investment; relicensing support; related P-J-M retail supply for Amazon; stock about two to three percent higher. Nuclear meets hyperscale demand. That is the third deep dive.

Pull Thursday together. Yields spiked to multi-decade highs, equities dipped at midday, then the board rebounded to finish modestly higher as rates eased — S-and-P about two-tenths of a percent higher, Dow and Nasdaq roughly flat to slightly higher. Accenture beat, booked, guided three-to-six percent growth, and surged around twenty percent. Nike beat on earnings, missed on sales, guided another high-single-digit revenue decline, launched Pace, and traded lower after hours. Constellation locked Amazon into twenty years of Calvert Cliffs nuclear power with an uprate and a multi-billion Maryland investment story. Services A-I relief, consumer rebuild, and nuclear-for-data-centers — three large-cap stories after a yield-driven session that refused to stay down into the close.

Quick recap into the night.

Accenture: fourth-quarter revenue eighteen-point-six-eight billion; G-A-A-P earnings three dollars twenty-nine cents; bookings twenty-two-point-one-seven billion; book-to-bill one-point-two; one hundred forty-one deals of one hundred million or more; full-year revenue seventy-four-point-one-eight billion; adjusted earnings thirteen ninety-seven; dividend one seventy-one, up five percent; fiscal twenty twenty-seven local-currency growth three to six percent; stock surged around twenty percent.

Nike: first-quarter revenue eleven-point-two billion, down four percent; earnings forty-eight cents; gross margin forty-two-point-eight percent; Greater China down about twenty-six percent currency-neutral; Direct down eight to nine percent; Pace two-point-five billion savings through fiscal twenty thirty-one; fiscal twenty twenty-seven revenue decline high-single digits; adjusted earnings guide one fifteen to one thirty-five; stock lower after hours.

Constellation: Amazon twenty-year P-P-A at Calvert Cliffs; six hundred ninety megawatts including one hundred ninety uprate; more than three billion Maryland investment; relicensing and P-J-M retail sleeve; stock about two to three percent higher.

Tomorrow morning we map the open into Friday’s Employment Situation — the big payrolls print at eight-thirty Eastern that can reprice yields and Fed odds again — and how Nike’s after-hours vote and Accenture’s services bid carry overnight. Thanks for listening. I’m Trade and Ticker. Enjoy the rest of your night.