Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Downgraded to “Hold” at StockNews.com

StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Saturday morning.

Other equities research analysts have also issued research reports about the company. TD Cowen reduced their price objective on Accenture from $363.00 to $350.00 and set a market perform rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $417.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Monday, March 18th. Guggenheim assumed coverage on Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, March 19th. They set a buy rating and a $425.00 price objective on the stock. Mizuho reiterated a buy rating and issued a $398.00 price target (down previously from $426.00) on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $394.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Monday, March 18th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $387.00.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $308.01 on Friday. Accenture has a 52-week low of $261.68 and a 52-week high of $387.51. The business’s fifty day moving average is $349.66 and its 200-day moving average is $342.14. The firm has a market cap of $206.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.92, a PEG ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 1.19.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $15.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $15.85 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.69 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 11th will be issued a $1.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 10th. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.68%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 46.78%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 851 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $371.77, for a total value of $316,376.27. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 50,737 shares in the company, valued at $18,862,494.49. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 851 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $371.77, for a total value of $316,376.27. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 50,737 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $18,862,494.49. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Manish Sharma sold 1,486 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $370.39, for a total value of $550,399.54. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 4,503 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,667,866.17. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 32,490 shares of company stock worth $10,592,664. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 0.3% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 58,434,025 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $17,945,673,000 after buying an additional 184,541 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.4% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 13,316,028 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,089,485,000 after acquiring an additional 565,505 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 7.0% in the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 11,034,666 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,388,856,000 after acquiring an additional 720,647 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.9% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 8,479,430 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,975,517,000 after acquiring an additional 159,696 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.6% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 8,285,864 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,544,672,000 after acquiring an additional 443,004 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.