Stifel Nicolaus Cuts Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target to $380.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target reduced by Stifel Nicolaus from $390.00 to $380.00 in a report issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. Stifel Nicolaus currently has a buy rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Other research analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price 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. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $348.28 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $217.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.22, 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 simple moving average of $367.28 and a 200-day simple moving average of $357.56. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.27 earnings per share. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $21,246,236,000 after acquiring an additional 392,183 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its position in Accenture by 1.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted 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 valued at $4,750,021,000 after purchasing an additional 136,665 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.8% during the 4th 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 buying an additional 1,770,024 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings 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 valued at $4,283,225,000 after buying an additional 2,260,740 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.