Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Lowered to $350.00 at Mizuho

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target decreased by Mizuho from $398.00 to $350.00 in a report released on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. Mizuho currently has a buy rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

ACN has been the subject of a number of other research reports. BMO Capital Markets decreased their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $375.00 and set a market perform rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 22nd. Barclays reduced their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $350.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 17th. Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on Accenture from $372.00 to $345.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 16th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price objective on Accenture from $395.00 to $340.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, TD Cowen cut their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $294.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, June 11th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $358.09.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $309.24 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $207.42 billion, a PE ratio of 28.04, a P/E/G ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.21. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $301.15 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $337.26. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.15 by ($0.02). The business had revenue of $16.47 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.55 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. Accenture’s revenue was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.19 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, July 11th will be given a $1.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 11th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.67%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 46.78%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,937,488.01. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In related news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,937,488.01. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 4,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $316.00, for a total value of $1,422,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 42,781 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,518,796. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 28,083 shares of company stock valued at $8,959,325 in the last three months. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 7.4% during the fourth quarter. McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc. now owns 29,204 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $10,248,000 after buying an additional 2,008 shares in the last quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 3.6% in the fourth quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC now owns 3,646 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,279,000 after purchasing an additional 125 shares during the period. Buckingham Capital Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Buckingham Capital Management Inc. now owns 27,559 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,671,000 after purchasing an additional 900 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 2.3% in the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 4,284,770 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,315,832,000 after purchasing an additional 96,414 shares during the period. Finally, Redwood Investments LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 8.3% in the fourth quarter. Redwood Investments LLC now owns 20,227 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $7,098,000 after purchasing an additional 1,542 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.