Shares of Huron Consulting Group surged 32.11% in Wednesday morning trading, climbing $38.97 to $160.34, after the professional services firm reported second-quarter results that sharply beat Wall Street expectations and raised its full-year earnings and revenue outlook.
The Chicago-based consulting firm reported adjusted earnings of $2.46 per share for the second quarter, topping the average analyst estimate of $2.17 by a wide margin. Revenue for the quarter reached $475.0 million, well above the roughly $449 million analysts had projected. Revenue before reimbursable expenses, a key metric the company uses to track underlying business performance, climbed 15.7% year over year to a quarterly record of $465.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter rose to $72.6 million, with the adjusted EBITDA margin expanding to 15.6% from 15.1% a year earlier.
Huron’s results were released after markets closed Tuesday, and the stock’s initial reaction in after-hours and early regular trading proved far more muted than Wednesday’s dramatic rally, with shares first climbing a more modest 3.66% to $120.77 before extending gains overnight and then surging sharply higher once regular trading resumed Wednesday morning.
Alongside the earnings beat, Huron raised its full-year 2026 guidance, now projecting revenue before reimbursable expenses of between $1.85 billion and $1.89 billion and adjusted earnings per share of between $9.00 and $9.40. The updated guidance compares with a prior range of $8.35 to $9.15 per share issued earlier this year, and the midpoint of the new outlook would represent a 17% increase over the company’s 2025 results, according to Chief Financial Officer John Kelly.
Company executives attributed the strong performance to broad-based growth across Huron’s three main operating segments, along with a growing contribution from artificial intelligence-related work and recent acquisitions. Chief Executive Officer C. Mark Hussey said artificial intelligence has become an increasingly significant driver of the company’s digital services business. Total bookings tied to Huron’s digital capabilities rose more than 20% during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, with more than 60% of those bookings now involving either direct AI-related work or engagements substantially supported by Huron’s proprietary AI tools, up from approximately 35% of comparable bookings during the first half of 2025. Digital revenue before reimbursable expenses rose 9% both year over year and sequentially during the second quarter, reaching a new company record.
Huron’s June acquisition of RelateCare, a provider of AI-enabled clinical and patient-access managed services, also contributed to the quarter’s strength. RelateCare’s results were incorporated into Huron’s healthcare segment beginning with a partial second quarter following the acquisition’s June 3 closing date. The company said it expects RelateCare to contribute approximately $30 million in revenue before reimbursable expenses during 2026, along with roughly $0.10 in adjusted earnings per share for the year.
Wednesday’s rally builds on a stretch of strong performance for Huron shares heading into the earnings report. The stock had already climbed 17.4% over the month leading up to Tuesday’s results, significantly outpacing the broader professional services sector, which had averaged gains of just 1.1% over the same period. Ahead of the earnings release, the average analyst price target for Huron stood at $184.25, compared with a pre-earnings share price of $112.30, suggesting Wall Street had already anticipated meaningful upside potential in the stock even before Wednesday’s dramatic surge.
Analyst sentiment toward Huron has been mixed in the weeks leading up to the earnings report. Wedbush maintained an “outperform” rating on the stock along with a $160 price target in a research note issued in early May. Truist Financial had set a $155 price target with a “buy” rating in early June. Barrington Research restated an “outperform” rating in mid-June. However, Wall Street Zen downgraded the stock from “buy” to “hold” in a note issued July 12, just over two weeks before the earnings release, while Weiss Ratings had separately lowered its rating on the stock from “hold (c+)” to “hold (c)” in mid-May, reflecting a degree of caution among some analysts heading into the report that Wednesday’s results appear to have significantly outpaced.
Huron Consulting Group provides consulting services primarily to organizations in the healthcare, education and commercial sectors, helping clients with strategy, operations, technology implementation and other advisory work. The company’s healthcare and education-focused consulting practices have historically formed the core of its business, though its digital and AI-related consulting offerings have become an increasingly important growth driver in recent quarters, a trend that management highlighted repeatedly in discussing Wednesday’s results.
Huron’s return on equity for the quarter stood at 29.41%, with a net margin of 5.94%, according to the company’s reported financial metrics. The company’s stock had a market capitalization of roughly $2 billion prior to Wednesday’s surge, based on the pre-rally share price, a figure that has grown substantially as a result of Wednesday’s trading activity.
Investors are likely to continue watching Huron’s execution against its newly raised full-year guidance in the coming quarters, along with the pace of integration for its recent RelateCare acquisition and the continued growth trajectory of its digital and AI-related consulting bookings, as key indicators of whether Wednesday’s sharp rally reflects a durable reassessment of the company’s growth prospects or a more short-lived reaction to a single standout quarterly result.
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