Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Cut to $395.00 by Analysts at Guggenheim

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective reduced by Guggenheim from $400.00 to $395.00 in a research note released on Friday,Benzinga reports. Guggenheim currently has a buy rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other analysts also recently issued reports on ACN. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Eight investment 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 stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $380.05.

Accenture Trading Up 1.4 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $305.17 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. 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 stock has a fifty day moving average price of $359.16 and a 200-day moving average price of $357.13.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 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 business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.77 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, 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 value of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were 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 in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its position in Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth 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 during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently 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.