Mizuho Cuts Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target to $398.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price trimmed by Mizuho from $428.00 to $398.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has an outperform rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other brokerages have also recently issued reports on ACN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped 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. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Piper Sandler dropped 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, March 14th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Finally, UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. 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 currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $305.17 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $359.16 and a 200 day moving average price of $357.13.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data 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. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.77 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 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 Trading of Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its stake 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 valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.