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

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) had its price objective cut by research analysts at Barclays from $390.00 to $360.00 in a report released on Monday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an "overweight" rating on the information technology services provider's stock. Barclays's target price would indicate a potential upside of 23.96% from the company's current price.

A number of other research firms have also commented on ACN. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their price objective on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. UBS Group reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $395.00 target price (up from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on Accenture from $372.00 to $340.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, June 12th. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $325.00 and set a "market perform" rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. Finally, Mizuho reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $377.00.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN traded up $5.06 on Monday, reaching $290.43. The company had a trading volume of 1,174,139 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,923,921. The company's fifty day moving average is $306.98 and its 200 day moving average is $333.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a current ratio of 1.46. The stock has a market cap of $181.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.11, a P/E/G ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 1.33. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $273.19 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.32 by $0.17. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.55% and a net margin of 11.61%. The company had revenue of $17.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.26 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.13 earnings per share. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

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

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 36.2% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $6,486,000 after buying an additional 4,905 shares in the last quarter. Sigma Planning Corp increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Sigma Planning Corp now owns 2,526 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $889,000 after purchasing an additional 83 shares during the last quarter. Howard Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $1,531,000. MONECO Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 26.9% in the 4th quarter. MONECO Advisors LLC now owns 1,713 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $603,000 after acquiring an additional 363 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $350,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.

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