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

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective dropped by research analysts at Piper Sandler from $396.00 to $364.00 in a research note issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “overweight” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Piper Sandler’s target price indicates a potential upside of 20.98% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other equities analysts also recently weighed in on the company. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday. 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 currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $383.00.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN stock opened at $300.86 on Thursday. 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 stock has a 50-day moving average price of $360.05 and a 200-day moving average price of $357.39. The firm has a market cap of $188.28 billion, a PE ratio of 25.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results 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. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the 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 completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were 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. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Swedbank AB raised its position in Accenture by 16.6% during 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. John G Ullman & Associates Inc. acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $218,000. LPL Financial LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 8.7% in the 3rd quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 532,534 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $188,240,000 after acquiring an additional 42,753 shares during the period. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 0.8% in the 3rd quarter. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC now owns 13,014 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,600,000 after acquiring an additional 102 shares during the period. Finally, Integrated Investment Consultants LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $377,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.