Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Sets New 12-Month Low After Analyst Downgrade

Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)’s stock price hit a new 52-week low on Tuesday after Wolfe Research lowered their price target on the stock from $290.00 to $285.00. Wolfe Research currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Accenture traded as low as $234.10 and last traded at $234.85, with a volume of 3494968 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $239.99.

Several other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on Accenture from $355.00 to $325.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, June 23rd. Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on Accenture from $372.00 to $350.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 16th. Rothschild Redb downgraded Accenture from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. HSBC initiated coverage on Accenture in a research report on Monday, July 28th. They set a “reduce” rating and a $240.00 target price for the company. Finally, Mizuho set a $348.00 target price on Accenture and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $329.52.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total transaction of $635,794.95. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 8,109 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,290,387.05. The trade was a 21.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total value of $57,315.02. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 5,249 shares in the company, valued at $1,482,002.66. The trade was a 3.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 2,954 shares of company stock worth $834,280. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Caldwell Trust Co purchased a new position in Accenture in the 2nd quarter worth $2,952,000. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 5.8% in the 2nd quarter. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC now owns 8,665 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,590,000 after purchasing an additional 474 shares in the last quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 41.7% in the 2nd quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 101,585 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $30,650,000 after purchasing an additional 29,914 shares in the last quarter. Total Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at about $50,000. Finally, MASTERINVEST Kapitalanlage GmbH acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 2nd quarter worth about $1,244,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Trading Down 2.2%

The company has a market capitalization of $146.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.68, a PEG ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a fifty day moving average of $256.92 and a 200-day moving average of $288.31. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. The business had revenue of $17.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.26 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.55% and a net margin of 11.61%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.13 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.