Shares of Accenture (ACN) are up 50 cents, or 0.8%, at $64.02, after the company last night beat fiscal Q2 expectations and raised its year outlook.

Price targets and estimates are going up all around this morning, though bears have taken to zeroing in on the weakness in Accenture’s consulting side of the business:

Ashwin Shirvaikar, Citigroup: Reiterates a Buy rating and raises his price target to $73 from $66. “Our concerns around near- term demand and decision-making weakness proved unwarranted,” he writes. Shirvaikar sees several “affirmations” of his expectations, both good and bad, in the quarter’s results: ” Above-normal sequential deceleration in revenues, given ~2 months of incremental Nokia revenue in the mix; Growing momentum in BPO; Strength in Europe, particularly for outsourcing; Offshore outsourcing continues to be strong; Consulting demand continues – deceleration is primarily due to tough comps; Gross margin weakness ; Back-half 2012 momentum,” along with some surprises such as the company’s “success in closing deals even in a tough selling environment” and the lack of control of sales costs “given ACN is reaching far and wide for contracts,” and the company’s decision to raise their outlook “just one quarter after lowering for currency.”

David Grossman, Stifel Nicolaus: Reiterates a Buy rating while raising his price target a buck to $70. The “tone” of management has improved, he notes, which should cheer the whole industry: “Management’s confidence and tone have definitely improved, terms such as “uncertainty” and “volatility” used in December were absent from this call. Management’s improving confidence reflects better visibility on CY12 IT budgets and another solid quarter of revenue and bookings growth. We believe this should be viewed as a positive data point for the entire industry.”

James Kissane, Credit Suisse: Reiterates a Neutral rating and a $66 price target. He notes the disparity between outsourcing and consulting in the quarter: “Outsourcing revenue growth accelerated while Consulting revenue growth decelerated. Outsourcing was solid across geographies and verticals while Consulting was weak in Europe.” The stock is fairly valued at 16 times forward four quarters’ projected profit.

Jason Kupferberg, Jefferies & Co.: Reiterates a Hold rating while raising his price target to $63 from $58, writing that there are “signs of a slowdown ahead,” mainly in the consulting practice. “Consulting const-curr revenue growth in F2Q slowed to 8% from 11% in F1Q, and management suggested this growth will decelerate to mid-single digits in F3Q. Y/Y comps are actually a little easier in F2H, and consulting bookings have remained robust (book-to-bill >1.0x each of past 3 quarters). We suspect the slowdown is due to some combination of law of large numbers, pockets of cyclical softness (i.e., European fin svcs), and perhaps conservatism.”

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