Piper Sandler Has Lowered Expectations for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price dropped by analysts at Piper Sandler from $429.00 to $396.00 in a research note issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an “overweight” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Piper Sandler’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 24.42% from the stock’s previous close.

ACN has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.52.

Accenture Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $318.28 on Friday. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The company has a 50-day moving average of $363.01 and a 200 day moving average of $358.10. The firm has a market cap of $199.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.70, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Visionary Wealth Advisors lifted its holdings in Accenture by 3.5% during the 4th quarter. Visionary Wealth Advisors now owns 778 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $274,000 after buying an additional 26 shares in the last quarter. Vivaldi Capital Management LP increased its holdings in Accenture by 3.6% during the 4th quarter. Vivaldi Capital Management LP now owns 782 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $292,000 after purchasing an additional 27 shares during the period. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 5.7% during the 4th quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $182,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tradition Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 0.3% in the third quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,871,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Company Profile

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.