Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Shares Gap Down After Analyst Downgrade

Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) gapped down prior to trading on Thursday after Mizuho lowered their price target on the stock from $428.00 to $398.00. The stock had previously closed at $324.47, but opened at $296.15. Mizuho currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Accenture shares last traded at $299.56, with a volume of 2,047,935 shares changing hands.

ACN has been the subject of several other reports. Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. BMO Capital Markets reduced 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. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. 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 stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $384.45.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction 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 approximately $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % 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 Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Swedbank AB grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.6% in the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $901,967,000 after purchasing an additional 363,401 shares during the last quarter. Meeder Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 24.8% in the third quarter. Meeder Asset Management Inc. now owns 378 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $134,000 after purchasing an additional 75 shares during the last quarter. Prospera Private Wealth LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 3.0% in the third quarter. Prospera Private Wealth LLC now owns 1,673 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $591,000 after purchasing an additional 48 shares during the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.3% in the third quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 4,552 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,609,000 after purchasing an additional 59 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.6% in the third quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 43,265 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $15,294,000 after purchasing an additional 239 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Down 7.3 %

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 has a market capitalization of $188.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.24, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a 50 day moving average of $360.05 and a 200-day moving average of $357.39.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued 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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.77 earnings per share. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc 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. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.97%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

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.