UBS Group Has Lowered Expectations for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price lowered by research analysts at UBS Group from $455.00 to $387.00 in a research note issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a “buy” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. UBS Group’s price target indicates a potential upside of 26.81% from the stock’s previous close.

Several other research firms have also commented on ACN. Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $380.05.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $305.17 on Friday. 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 has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $359.16 and its two-hundred day moving average is $357.24. The stock has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.60, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Visionary Wealth Advisors grew its stake in Accenture by 3.5% in the 4th quarter. Visionary Wealth Advisors now owns 778 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $274,000 after acquiring an additional 26 shares during the period. Vivaldi Capital Management LP grew its stake in Accenture by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Vivaldi Capital Management LP now owns 782 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $292,000 after acquiring an additional 27 shares during the period. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 5.7% in the 4th quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $182,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th 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 during the period. Finally, Tradition Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,871,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.