Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Rating Lowered by StockNews.com

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) was downgraded by stock analysts at StockNews.com from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued on Tuesday.

ACN has been the topic of several other reports. UBS Group increased their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $324.25 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $202.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.20, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $364.36 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $358.39. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced 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 business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth approximately $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $30,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.