Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Lowered to $372.00 at Morgan Stanley

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective reduced by Morgan Stanley from $380.00 to $372.00 in a research report report published on Monday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an equal weight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted 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. Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler reduced their price target on Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 14th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $384.45.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $324.52 on Monday. 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 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $203.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $361.19 and a 200 day moving average of $357.78.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture 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 sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their position. 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 in the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Swedbank AB boosted its holdings 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 valued at $901,967,000 after acquiring an additional 363,401 shares in the last quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 3.1% during the third quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC now owns 4,140 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,463,000 after purchasing an additional 125 shares during the last quarter. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 7.0% in the 3rd quarter. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC now owns 7,800 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,757,000 after buying an additional 512 shares in the last quarter. Zevin Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 2.6% in the third quarter. Zevin Asset Management LLC now owns 33,532 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $11,853,000 after purchasing an additional 857 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth $30,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.