Piper Sandler Cuts Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target to $364.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective reduced by Piper Sandler from $396.00 to $364.00 in a report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. Piper Sandler currently has an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other research firms also recently issued reports on ACN. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 18th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. 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 company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $305.17 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.60, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $359.16 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $357.24. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA raised its position in shares of Accenture by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,883 shares during the last quarter. Davidson Trust Co. raised its holdings in Accenture by 7.4% in the fourth quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $812,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 126.8% in the fourth quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $14,090,000 after buying an additional 22,391 shares in the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 37.5% during the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,088,000 after buying an additional 843 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 127.1% during the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $817,000 after acquiring an additional 1,300 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.