Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Cut to Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley lowered shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating in a research report report published on Wednesday morning, MarketBeat reports. They currently have $300.00 target price on the information technology services provider’s stock, down from their previous target price of $382.00.

ACN has been the subject of several other reports. Piper Sandler decreased their target price on Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 17th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $395.00 to $340.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Susquehanna reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $360.00 to $350.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, June 21st. Citigroup dropped their price objective on Accenture from $430.00 to $400.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Finally, Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on Accenture from $372.00 to $345.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 16th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $352.74.

Accenture Stock Up 0.1 %

ACN stock opened at $303.41 on Wednesday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $300.17 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $336.10. The stock has a market capitalization of $203.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.38 and a beta of 1.21. Accenture has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.15 by ($0.02). Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The firm had revenue of $16.47 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.55 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.19 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Accenture will post 11.95 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, July 11th will be paid a dividend of $1.29 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 11th. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 47.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 4,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $316.00, for a total transaction of $1,422,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 42,781 shares in the company, valued at $13,518,796. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 4,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.00, for a total value of $1,422,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 42,781 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $13,518,796. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,333 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.12, for a total value of $1,369,747.96. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 30,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,705,516.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 20,083 shares of company stock worth $6,302,285. 0.07% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 1.1% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,718,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $20,699,110,000 after purchasing an additional 635,349 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its stake 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 buying an additional 720,647 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its holdings in Accenture by 2.0% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 8,652,537 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,999,056,000 after acquiring an additional 173,107 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $2,061,490,000. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in Accenture by 1.6% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,466,684 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,556,676,000 after purchasing an additional 68,635 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.