Hey Snackers,Hey Snackers,

There’s a group of dogs who generate more revenue per employee than employees at Microsoft, AMD, Tesla, or Palantir. Canines in South Africa’s Detector Dog Unit, which sniffs out goods that would otherwise have evaded customs duty, bring in an average of $1.8 million per dog per year in customs revenue. Currently, the unit has a shortage of 14 dogs, which is costing the South African government roughly $25 million per year in lost income. 

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 ended the week higher on Thursday after President Trump and Iranian President Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war. Information technology was the best-performing sector, followed by consumer discretionary as airlines and cruise lines surged on the prospect of cheaper fuel costs, while energy was Thursday’s worst performer.

Are consultants doomed? Accenture’s report ain’t encouraging. Are consultants doomed? Accenture’s report ain’t encouraging. 

Accenture notched its biggest one-day loss on record on Thursday after reporting disappointing Q4 sales guidance along with its ho-hum Q3 results. 

• The consulting giant is in the business of helping companies “reinvent” themselves, a process that it’s also in the midst of itself, in light of how consulting has been rattled by the emergence of AI. 
• And to do that, it’s enlisted the help of the enemy at the gates, striking myriad AI-linked partnerships as well as M&A. That list swelled on Thursday with the announcement of a handful of cybersecurity acquisitions.
• Accenture’s new bookings disappointed at $19.32 billion versus an estimate of $20.66 billion. Breaking down those results, its consulting business was better than expected, but managed services underwhelmed. 
• The latter relates to revenues the firm generates from customers continuing to use Accenture to run those solutions on an ongoing basis.

It could mean lots of things, one of which is that companies are happy to use Accenture’s advice to generate an AI strategy, but are able to implement those changes themselves.

The Takeaway

We flagged Accenture’s bookings as a key chart to watch for 2026, based on the idea that Fortune 500 companies that want to build out an AI strategy would be turning to the consulting company (as well as its peers) for help.

These results, and the trend, are pretty uninspiring.

Separately, management boosted the amount of cash it plans to return to shareholders this fiscal year by $200 million to “at least” $9.5 billion. But as we discussed in last Monday’s EntryPoint newsletter, it’s capex that’s hot, and shareholder returns are not. A Goldman Sachs basket of buyback-heavy firms came into this week with the worst annual performance relative to their capex-heavy peers.

I## What else we're Snackin'

• As we’ve previously covered, alcohol sales are under pressure, but Guinness has managed to buck that trend with the help of exec Gráinne Wafer, even as its parent company Diageo saw North American sales slide 9.4% last quarter.
• Japan’s Fair Trade Commission has raided ice cream makers on suspicions of forming a cartel 
• Midjourney is building a body scanner that it says is faster than an MRI. Shares of Butterfly Network, whose Ultrasound-on-Chip technology is powering the medical imaging platform, soared on Thursday.