Good News for a Change

ACN reported earnings after the bell this evening. The expectations were that as we head into a recession that consulting will be used less. They had a real wind at their back with the USD getting weaker. Revenues were up 11% in local currencies and up 18% in USD! Here are some headlines:

• Accenture Reports Strong Second-Quarter Fiscal 2008 Financial Results
• Accenture Raises '08 Profit Target
• Accenture quarterly net income jumps 37%

Sounds good to me! Should see some movement tomorrow.

I do wonder about JTX a bit. This is a stock that is probably down close to 50% in the past month or so. They had a poor first quarter, which included January... traditionally the kick-off of tax season (I am still working on mine). Now the million dollar question is whether that was caused by people procrastinating or by people moving to other means of doing their taxes? I don't know the answer to that, but I do wonder whether the proposed government rebate program will cause more people to use tax preparers like HRB and JTX (as you have to have filed a return to qualify for the rebate). Does that make JTX a buy at $11.03? I think so.

Now I have a bone to pick with IAR. I admit this was one of many poor stock picks I have had in the past year. I hope no one followed my lead. Today they announced they are suspending their dividend (UPDATE - Idearc to suspend dividend payment; shares fall). Now that should not be a big shock to anyone. Right now the emphasis needs to be on meeting debt payments. They did say revenues were down single digit and margins had lowered ( Idearc Executive, at Credit Suisse Conference, tells investors underlying business fundamentals sound). The stock sold off about 9%, probably an over-reaction... but what are you going to do. My "bone" is that they announced these major revisions in a conference in the middle of day. It didn't impact me, as I have already bought and will be holding for another 8 months. But that seems to give people at the conference an unfair advantage. Something like this should be announced before the opening bell.

Here is the chart showing the people close to the event probably were able to steal a march on suckers not there:

IDEARC INC (NYSE)

Range: 1d 5d 3m 6m 1y 2y Type: Bar | Line | Cdl Scale: Linear | Log Size: M | L

Compare: IAR vs S&P Nasdaq Dow

Tomorrow I head off for a week of vacation. I'll probably try to ignore my blog, the yahoo groups board and the stock market. That should be healthy.