UBS Group Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price cut by UBS Group from $455.00 to $387.00 in a research report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has a “buy” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. UBS Group’s price objective points to a potential upside of 28.49% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other research firms also recently commented on ACN. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. StockNews.com cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price for the company in a research report on Monday. Mizuho decreased their target price on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Baird R W raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $379.91.

Accenture Stock Up 0.1 %

NYSE:ACN traded up $0.29 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $301.20. The stock had a trading volume of 2,017,158 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,771,406. The business’s 50 day moving average is $360.05 and its 200 day moving average is $357.39. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The stock has a market cap of $188.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.29, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, 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 can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

About Accenture

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.