BMO Capital Markets Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective trimmed by BMO Capital Markets from $425.00 to $370.00 in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a market perform rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

ACN has been the subject of several other reports. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $384.45.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $300.86 on Tuesday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $360.05 and a 200 day simple moving average of $357.39. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a market capitalization of $188.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.24, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.97%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 49.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Visionary Wealth Advisors raised its position in shares of Accenture by 3.5% during the fourth quarter. Visionary Wealth Advisors now owns 778 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $274,000 after purchasing an additional 26 shares during the period. Vivaldi Capital Management LP raised its position in Accenture by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Vivaldi Capital Management LP now owns 782 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $292,000 after buying an additional 27 shares during the last quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. raised its position in Accenture by 5.7% in the 4th quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $182,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its position in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Tradition Wealth Management LLC raised its position in Accenture by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,871,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during 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.