Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Given New $355.00 Price Target at Piper Sandler

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective lowered by Piper Sandler from $364.00 to $355.00 in a report published on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. Piper Sandler currently has an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other brokerages have also recently issued reports on ACN. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Guggenheim reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price target on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $377.82.

Accenture Stock Down 1.0 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $285.66 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The company has a market capitalization of $178.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The business has a 50-day moving average of $330.47 and a two-hundred day moving average of $350.70. Accenture has a 1 year low of $275.01 and a 1 year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders 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 dividend yield of 2.07%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. The trade was a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $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 ninety days, insiders sold 27,921 shares of company stock valued at $9,876,619. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth about $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth approximately $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th 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.

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.