Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Given New $390.00 Price Target at Barclays

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price decreased by Barclays from $415.00 to $390.00 in a research report sent to investors on Monday,Benzinga reports. Barclays currently has an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other research firms have also recently weighed in on ACN. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Mizuho reduced 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, March 19th. Finally, UBS Group dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.91.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $307.24 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $192.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.78, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $358.32 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $357.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly 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. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.93%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Mascagni Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $164,000. DSG Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $269,000. Chancellor Financial Group WB LP purchased a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $381,000. 111 Capital acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $1,796,000. Finally, Members Wealth LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $261,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.