BMO Capital Markets Cuts Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target to $370.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective trimmed by BMO Capital Markets from $425.00 to $370.00 in a report released on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a market perform rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Other equities research analysts also recently issued reports about the stock. Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday. Jefferies Financial Group cut 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. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Eight equities research 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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $384.45.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $300.86 on Tuesday. Accenture has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The company has a market capitalization of $188.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.24, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $360.05 and a two-hundred day moving average of $357.39.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share 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 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 company earned $2.77 EPS. Accenture’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.97%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was 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 $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of ACN. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $2,351,683,000. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 22.8% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,283,225,000 after acquiring an additional 2,260,740 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $666,495,000. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,325,526,000 after acquiring an additional 1,770,024 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by 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.