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

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price cut by Barclays from $415.00 to $390.00 in a research report sent to investors on Monday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other equities analysts have also commented on ACN. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, March 20th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their target price on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 18th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target 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. Finally, UBS Group reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.91.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $307.24 on Monday. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $192.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.78, a P/E/G 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. The business’s 50-day moving average is $358.32 and its two-hundred day moving average is $357.10.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.77 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.93%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $21,246,236,000 after acquiring an additional 392,183 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Accenture by 1.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,750,021,000 after purchasing an additional 136,665 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its holdings in Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,325,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 22.8% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,283,225,000 after buying an additional 2,260,740 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

About Accenture

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.