Morgan Stanley Has Lowered Expectations for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective dropped by equities research analysts at Morgan Stanley from $380.00 to $372.00 in a report released on Monday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “equal weight” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 16.88% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other research firms have also commented on ACN. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target for the company in a research report on Monday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $388.04.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $318.28 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $199.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.70, 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. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $363.01 and a 200-day moving average price of $358.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.27 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, 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 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Swedbank AB grew its position in shares of Accenture by 16.6% in the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $901,967,000 after buying an additional 363,401 shares during the period. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 3.1% in the third quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC now owns 4,140 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,463,000 after purchasing an additional 125 shares during the period. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.0% during the third quarter. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC now owns 7,800 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,757,000 after purchasing an additional 512 shares in the last quarter. Zevin Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.6% during the third quarter. Zevin Asset Management LLC now owns 33,532 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $11,853,000 after purchasing an additional 857 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $30,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.