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

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective decreased by Piper Sandler from $429.00 to $396.00 in a research note published on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. Piper Sandler currently has an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently commented on ACN. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.52.

Accenture Stock Up 0.4 %

ACN opened at $318.28 on Friday. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week 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 company’s 50-day moving average is $363.01 and its 200 day moving average is $358.24. The firm has a market capitalization of $199.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.70, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. Research analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew 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 purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $30,000. Finally, Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.