Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Cut to $364.00 by Analysts at Piper Sandler

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target dropped by research analysts at Piper Sandler from $396.00 to $364.00 in a research note issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an “overweight” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Piper Sandler’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 19.28% from the company’s previous close.

ACN has been the subject of a number of other reports. Morgan Stanley reduced their price target 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. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Eight equities research 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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

ACN stock opened at $305.17 on Thursday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $359.16 and a 200 day moving average of $357.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $2,351,683,000. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position in shares of 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 valued at $4,283,225,000 after acquiring an additional 2,260,740 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $666,495,000. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors boosted its position in shares of 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 valued at $4,325,526,000 after acquiring an additional 1,770,024 shares during 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.