Piper Sandler Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target cut by Piper Sandler from $364.00 to $355.00 in a report issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

ACN has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of 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. Barclays cut their price target on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 24th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. StockNews.com cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $377.82.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $282.28 on Wednesday. Accenture has a one year low of $275.01 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $326.22 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $349.73. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $176.80 billion, a PE ratio of 23.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.10%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. The trade was a 3.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 23,778 shares of company stock valued at $8,408,087. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its position 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. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.