Key Takeaways for Autodesk Stock as of September 2026
- Software Rout: Autodesk stock fell 8% on Friday, September 4, dragged down with Adobe and Workday after Adobe’s surprise CEO transition reignited AI-era anxiety across enterprise and creative software names.
- Street Holds Firm: The current split runs 24 buys, 6 outperforms and 6 holds among the 36 analysts rating Autodesk stock, with a $315 mean target sitting 45% above Friday’s close.
- Model Math: A $379 target and a 74% total return anchor the mid-case model through 2031.
- Widest Gap on Record: The Target/Close ratio just hit 145%.
Why Autodesk Stock Fell 8% as Adobe’s CEO News Rattled Software
Autodesk (ADSK) stock fell 8% on Friday, September 4, 2026, closing at $218, down from $238 the prior session. The trigger wasn’t an Autodesk press release. It was Adobe’s announcement that Anil Chakravarthy would take over as chief executive from Shantanu Narayen, a succession that landed days ahead of Adobe’s own earnings and reopened a question the whole software group has been dodging: who actually wins as generative AI eats into the seat-based licensing model.
Adobe stock dropped 7% the same day. Workday fell 4% even after beating earnings and raising its subscription guidance, a decline one market recap attributed to “sympathy with the enterprise software cohort.” Autodesk landed on the same day’s list of biggest software losers. None of the three had fresh bad news of their own that morning. The selling was sector-wide, and Autodesk absorbed the biggest hit of the group.
That size gap matters. A stock that falls roughly twice as hard as its closest peers on a pure sympathy trade usually carries baggage of its own into that selling, and Autodesk walked into Friday already carrying plenty.
Autodesk stock’s move means the software group is still pricing AI disruption as a live threat to legacy vendors, and Autodesk, now trading at 17 times forward earnings against its own 28 times average, remains the name investors cut first when that fear resurfaces even as its own multiple has already reset hard.
The August Guidance Miss Still Haunting Autodesk Stock
Autodesk reported fiscal second-quarter results on August 27. Revenue came in at $2.05 billion, up 16.1% year over year, and non-GAAP EPS hit $3.30 against a $3.12 consensus. Both beat. But Autodesk guided third-quarter non-GAAP EPS to $3.04-$3.09, short of the $3.14 the Street wanted, and narrowed full-year free cash flow guidance to $2.725-$2.750 billion, citing costs tied to the MaintainX acquisition.
Shares fell roughly 5% the day after that report. The stock never fully recovered before Friday’s software rout arrived, which is why the sector-wide selling found a name already trading on edge. Investors walked into September 4 pricing Autodesk for cash flow disappointment, and the Adobe news gave that existing worry a fresh reason to sell.
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Autodesk Stock’s Analyst Gap Just Hit a New High
The current split runs 24 buys, 6 outperforms and 6 holds among the 36 analysts rating Autodesk stock, with zero underperform or sell calls. The mean target sits at $315, which is 45% above Friday’s $218 close, the widest gap the six-quarter table has shown.
That gap didn’t open overnight. Back on July 31, 2025, Autodesk stock closed at $303 against a $342 mean target, a 13% upside spread. The price has since fallen 28% to $218. The mean target, by contrast, has slipped only 8% from that starting point, bottoming near $314 in July before ticking back up to $315 now. Coverage grew the entire time, from 29 analysts providing targets to 34, and the buy count actually rose, from 19 to 24. Analysts have not chased Autodesk stock down. They have mostly stood still while the price did the moving.
That divergence lines up with Section 1’s driver. If the September 4 drop were built on new information about Autodesk’s business, the Street would be trimming targets to match. Instead the ratings mix has gotten more bullish over the same stretch that the stock lost more than a quarter of its value, which reads as a market repricing sentiment and multiple, not the underlying model.
TIKR Values Autodesk Stock at $379, Pricing In a Sentiment Reset
TIKR’s mid-case model values Autodesk at $379 by January 2031, implying a 74% total return from the current price of $218, or 13% annualized over 4.4 years.
Autodesk stock now trades at 17 times forward earnings, well under its own 28 times average and just above the 15 times low it touched earlier this year, so the model’s 13% annualized return no longer requires paying a growth premium the way the stock did through most of 2024 and 2025.
TIKR’s model can point to that return because Friday’s driver was sentiment, not fundamentals, and because Section 2’s Street has kept its mean target near $315 through the entire decline rather than following the price lower. Close that gap and the stock does most of the model’s work on its own.
Should You Invest in Autodesk, Inc.?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
