Royal Bank of Canada Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective lowered by Royal Bank of Canada from $399.00 to $392.00 in a research report report published on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an outperform rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other brokerages have also issued reports on ACN. Wolfe Research raised shares of 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. UBS Group lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $380.05.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. 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. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $359.16 and a 200-day simple moving average of $357.33. The stock has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.77 earnings per share. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

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

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. DSG Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $269,000. Chancellor Financial Group WB LP purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $381,000. 111 Capital purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $1,796,000. Members Wealth LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $261,000. Finally, Lansforsakringar Fondforvaltning AB publ purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $72,926,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.