Mizuho Cuts Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target to $398.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target dropped by analysts at Mizuho from $428.00 to $398.00 in a research note issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an “outperform” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Mizuho’s price target would indicate a potential upside of 22.76% from the company’s current price.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price 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. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Robert W. Baird raised 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. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.09.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $324.21 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $202.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.20, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $361.86 and its 200-day simple moving average is $358.02. 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 quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.27 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings 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 during the period. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.8% in 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 acquiring an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted 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 acquiring an additional 136,665 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its holdings in 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 valued at $4,325,526,000 after acquiring an additional 1,770,024 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in Accenture by 22.8% in the fourth 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 during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.