Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Given New $372.00 Price Target at Morgan Stanley

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective reduced by Morgan Stanley from $380.00 to $372.00 in a research note issued on Monday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “equal weight” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective points to a potential upside of 16.88% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other equities research analysts have also commented on the stock. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $388.04.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $318.28 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $199.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.70, a PEG 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. Accenture has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $363.01 and a 200 day simple moving average of $358.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $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 SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, 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. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Lansforsakringar Fondforvaltning AB publ purchased a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $72,926,000. Capstone Triton Financial Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 43.0% in the 4th quarter. Capstone Triton Financial Group LLC now owns 2,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $961,000 after purchasing an additional 822 shares during the period. TFR Capital LLC. bought a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at $1,792,000. Park Square Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $31,000. Finally, Menard Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at $125,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.