Piper Sandler Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective reduced by Piper Sandler from $429.00 to $396.00 in a research report report published on Friday,Benzinga reports. Piper Sandler currently has an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on ACN. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.52.

Accenture Stock Up 0.4 %

ACN stock opened at $318.28 on Friday. Accenture has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $199.17 billion, a PE ratio of 26.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $363.01 and its 200 day simple moving average is $357.97. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Several institutional investors and hedge funds 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. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. 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.