Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Lowered to $392.00 at Royal Bank of Canada

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective trimmed by Royal Bank of Canada from $399.00 to $392.00 in a research note published on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an outperform rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other analysts have also issued reports on the stock. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Mizuho cut their target price on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. 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. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $380.05.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

Accenture stock opened at $305.17 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.60, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $359.16 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $357.13. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 last year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $2,351,683,000. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 22.8% during the fourth 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 acquiring an additional 2,260,740 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth $666,495,000. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.8% in 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 purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares during the period. Institutional investors 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.