AECOM (ACM) Stock Price & How to Invest

AECOM is in the business of engineering expertise, not steel. The company plans, designs, engineers and manages infrastructure programs for governments and large corporations: highways and transit systems, water and wastewater treatment, airports and ports, environmental remediation, flood defenses, and increasingly the power and site work behind data centers. It reports in three segments, Americas (about $2.9 billion of quarterly revenue), International (about $890 million), and a small AECOM Capital investment arm, and employs roughly 51,000 people. Critically, AECOM exited self-perform construction years ago, so it no longer takes fixed-price building risk on its own balance sheet. What is left is a professional services business with very little capital intensity, which is why return on equity runs near 29% on only about $3.35 billion of debt against $1.04 billion of cash.

The investment picture in August 2026 is a split screen. On one side, demand and profitability look excellent: fiscal second quarter 2026 (the quarter ended March 2026, reported May 11) delivered record second-quarter adjusted EBITDA of $312 million at a 16.5% margin, adjusted EPS of $1.59 up 27%, total backlog at a record $26.2 billion up 8%, and a design book-to-burn ratio of 1.2, and management raised full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $5.90 to $6.10. On the other side, cash collapsed in the same quarter: operating cash flow came in at $4 million, down 98% year over year, and adjusted free cash flow swung to negative $27.4 million from positive $178.4 million a year earlier. CFO Gaurav Kapoor attributed it to longer-than-anticipated claim resolution on certain projects, and the 10-Q showed significant claims recorded in contract assets rising to roughly $680 million from about $400 million six months earlier. Shares fell about 12% the next day and have not recovered. The stock now trades around 12 times forward earnings and roughly 9.9 times EV/EBITDA against a peer group closer to 13 times, which is the discount management itself has been pointing at in its slide decks.

The cash flow problem is the live issue and it is not resolved: operating cash flow fell 98% in the fiscal second quarter of 2026 and free cash flow went negative, while significant claims recorded in contract assets and other non-current assets grew to roughly $680 million from about $400 million at the September 2025 fiscal year end. Full-year free cash flow guidance of roughly $400 million therefore depends on collecting a large amount in the back half, and if claims resolution keeps slipping, the reported earnings growth will look increasingly disconnected from cash. Several plaintiffs' firms (Pomerantz, Glancy Prongay, Schall, Howard G. Smith, Frank R. Cruz) announced securities-fraud investigations in May and June 2026 over the disclosures around that quarter; as of early August 2026 these appear to be investigations rather than a filed class action, but they are an open overhang. Government client concentration cuts both ways, exposing the company to budget cycles, appropriations delays and procurement slowdowns, and International net service revenue was already declining 3% in constant currency. Short interest sits near 6.7% of shares outstanding, and fiscal third quarter results are scheduled for August 10, 2026, which is a near-term catalyst in either direction.

12 analysts publish price targets on ACM, averaging $99.21 against a $74.93 price as of August 2026, or +32.4%. The published targets run from $87.00 to $110.00, a narrow spread, and the ratings split 11 buy, 2 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there have been 2 raises and 10 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full ACM forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on AECOM. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. A record backlog that is growing faster than revenue. Total backlog reached a record $26.2 billion in the fiscal second quarter of 2026, up 8% year over year, with the design business booking 1.2 dollars of new work for every dollar burned. The most optimistic published target, $110.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. The cash flow problem is the live issue and it is not resolved: operating cash flow fell 98% in the fiscal second quarter of 2026 and free cash flow went negative, while significant claims recorded in contract assets and other non-current assets grew to roughly $680 million from about $400 million at the September 2025 fiscal year end. The most pessimistic target, $87.00, is roughly what ACM is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on ACM, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see AECOM's investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM): ~$16.0 billion, with net service revenue near $1.95 billion a quarter
• Fiscal 2026 guidance: ~$5.90 to $6.10 adjusted EPS, ~$1.275 to $1.305 billion adjusted EBITDA, ~$400 million free cash flow
• Total backlog: ~$26.2 billion, a record, up ~8% year over year
• Adjusted EBITDA margin: ~16.5% in fiscal Q2 2026, with Americas segment margin at ~20.0%
• Free cash flow (TTM): ~$410 million, but negative ~$27 million in fiscal Q2 2026 alone
• Market cap / valuation: ~$9.6 billion at ~$75 a share, ~12x forward earnings and ~9.9x EV/EBITDA

The valuation reflects skepticism about cash conversion, not about the order book. At roughly 12 times forward earnings and about 9.9 times EV/EBITDA, AECOM prices below an engineering and consulting peer group closer to 13 times, despite carrying higher margins than the peer average, a gap management has explicitly flagged in its investor slides. Trailing GAAP metrics look less flattering (net income of about $506 million on $16.0 billion of revenue is a 3.2% margin, giving a trailing P/E near 19.5), which is why the forward and trailing multiples tell such different stories. Return on equity near 29% and a share count down roughly 20% since 2020 are what the forward multiple is capitalizing.

Other names that sit close to ACM: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get ACM exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so ACM sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where ACM fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

AECOM is a high-margin, high-return-on-equity infrastructure consultancy with a record order book, priced at a discount to its peer group because the cash is not yet showing up on schedule.

Whether ACM is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is ACM a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the ACM stock forecast.

For income investors, whether ACM pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does ACM pay a dividend? And to weigh ACM against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: ACM vs TTEK and ACM vs PSN.