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

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective cut by Guggenheim from $400.00 to $395.00 in a report released on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a buy rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

ACN has been the topic of several other reports. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 18th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $380.05.

Accenture Trading Up 1.4 %

ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The stock 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 quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The business has a 50 day moving average of $359.16 and a 200-day moving average of $357.33.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly 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. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were 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 in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $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.