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 $355.00 to $325.00 in a report released on Monday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a market perform rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other research firms also recently issued reports on ACN. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 target price (up previously from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on Accenture from $349.00 to $353.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, June 16th. Finally, Benchmark reaffirmed a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, June 20th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $370.75.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $294.71 on Monday. Accenture has a 12 month low of $273.19 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $307.51 and its 200 day simple moving average is $332.55. The company has a market cap of $184.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.46, a PEG ratio of 2.95 and a beta of 1.33.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. The business had revenue of $17.73 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.26 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.55% and a net margin of 11.61%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.13 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, July 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.01%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 47.13%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 15,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,161,650. This trade represents a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at $1,512,111.60. This trade represents a 3.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Visionary Wealth Advisors grew its stake 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 valued at $274,000 after buying an additional 26 shares during the last quarter. Vivaldi Capital Management LP boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.6% during the fourth quarter. Vivaldi Capital Management LP now owns 782 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $292,000 after purchasing an additional 27 shares during the period. Nemes Rush Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 7.5% during the fourth quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC now owns 418 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $147,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the period. United Community Bank boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.5% during the fourth quarter. United Community Bank now owns 2,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $728,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. Finally, Tradition Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,981 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,863,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by 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.