Morgan Stanley Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective lowered by Morgan Stanley from $340.00 to $325.00 in a research report issued on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an “equal weight” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price target would suggest a potential upside of 10.28% from the company’s current price.

Several other research analysts also recently commented on ACN. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Mizuho dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 price objective (up previously from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $370.75.

Accenture Trading Down 2.0%

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $294.71 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $184.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.46, a P/E/G ratio of 2.95 and a beta of 1.33. 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 company has a fifty day moving average of $307.51 and a 200 day moving average of $332.55. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $273.19 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

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 company had revenue of $17.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.26 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 26.55%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.13 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were 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 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total transaction of $643,242.92. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 9,965 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Brighton Jones LLC raised its holdings 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 during the last quarter. Sigma Planning Corp raised 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 worth $889,000 after buying an additional 83 shares during the last quarter. MONECO Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 26.9% in the fourth quarter. MONECO Advisors LLC now owns 1,713 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $603,000 after buying an additional 363 shares during the last quarter. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $350,000. Finally, IFP Advisors Inc raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.5% in the fourth quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 10,920 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,841,000 after buying an additional 164 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently 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.