Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Given New $387.00 Price Target at UBS Group

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target reduced by UBS Group from $455.00 to $387.00 in a research note published on Friday,Benzinga reports. UBS Group currently has a buy rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on ACN. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. StockNews.com cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Mizuho dropped their price target on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $380.05.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. Accenture has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $359.16 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $357.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 company 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 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 49.66%.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $21,246,236,000 after purchasing an additional 392,183 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of 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 buying an additional 136,665 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,325,526,000 after buying an additional 1,770,024 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP grew its stake in Accenture by 22.8% during 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 acquiring an additional 2,260,740 shares in the last quarter. 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.