Morgan Stanley Cuts Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target to $372.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target reduced by Morgan Stanley from $380.00 to $372.00 in a research note released on Monday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an equal weight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other analysts have also recently weighed in on the stock. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. UBS Group lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $388.04.

Accenture Stock Up 2.3 %

ACN stock opened at $326.25 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company’s 50 day moving average is $362.51 and its two-hundred day moving average is $358.14. The stock has a market cap of $204.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.37, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s 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 owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake 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 last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Accenture by 1.0% during the 4th 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 increased its position in Accenture by 16.8% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,325,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP increased its position in 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 purchasing an additional 2,260,740 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.