Guggenheim Lowers Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target to $395.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective reduced by analysts at Guggenheim from $400.00 to $395.00 in a note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a “buy” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Guggenheim’s price target indicates a potential upside of 29.44% from the stock’s previous close.

Other equities analysts also recently issued reports about the company. 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. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Eight investment 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 MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $359.16 and its 200 day moving average price is $357.24. Accenture has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for 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 firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.77 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict 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 business’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 transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % 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 worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th 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 in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.