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

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) had its price target cut by equities research analysts at Piper Sandler from $396.00 to $364.00 in a research note issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an "overweight" rating on the information technology services provider's stock. Piper Sandler's price target would indicate a potential upside of 18.30% from the company's current price.

A number of other research firms also recently commented on ACN. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and increased their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a "hold" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a "market perform" rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $378.91.

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Accenture Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of NYSE ACN traded up $2.37 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $307.69. 1,809,553 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,224,237. The stock has a market capitalization of $192.55 billion, a PE ratio of 25.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The business's fifty day moving average price is $359.16 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $357.33.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business's revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.77 EPS. Analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company's stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, 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

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $21,246,236,000 after buying an additional 392,183 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake 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 buying an additional 136,665 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.8% in the 4th 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 buying an additional 1,770,024 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its stake in Accenture by 22.8% during the fourth 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 purchasing an additional 2,260,740 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.