Royal Bank of Canada Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price reduced by Royal Bank of Canada from $399.00 to $392.00 in a report published on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have an outperform rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other research analysts have also weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. UBS Group dropped their price objective on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Mizuho dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $380.05.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.60, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 business has a 50-day moving average of $359.16 and a 200-day moving average of $357.13.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, 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 modified their holdings of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth approximately $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by 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.