Morgan Stanley Cuts Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target to $372.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price cut by Morgan Stanley from $380.00 to $372.00 in a research report released on Monday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have an equal weight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other research analysts also recently commented on the stock. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday. UBS Group raised their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus cut their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Eight research 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 company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $384.45.

Accenture Trading Up 0.1 %

NYSE ACN opened at $324.52 on Monday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $361.19 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $357.78. The stock has a market cap of $203.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.22, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month 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 released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $21,246,236,000 after buying an additional 392,183 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 1.0% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,750,021,000 after purchasing an additional 136,665 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 16.8% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,325,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 22.8% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,283,225,000 after buying an additional 2,260,740 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.