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

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target cut by research analysts at Guggenheim from $305.00 to $285.00 in a research report issued on Friday, Marketbeat reports. The brokerage presently has a “buy” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Guggenheim’s price target points to a potential upside of 19.03% from the company’s previous close.

Other equities analysts have also issued research reports about the company. HSBC assumed coverage on Accenture in a research report on Monday, July 28th. They set a “reduce” rating and a $240.00 price objective for the company. TD Cowen cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $342.00 to $313.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 9th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $325.00 to $270.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a report on Friday. BNP Paribas Exane reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $300.00 to $255.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Benchmark reiterated a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, June 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating, nine have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $301.91.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $239.43 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $149.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.71, a PEG ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 1.29. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $253.43 and a 200 day moving average of $286.02. Accenture has a 52 week low of $229.40 and a 52 week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.98 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.66 earnings per share. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $141,170.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,283 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $644,582.22. The trade was a 17.97% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total value of $635,794.95. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 8,109 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,290,387.05. The trade was a 21.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 2,954 shares of company stock valued at $834,280 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 2.1% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 65,129,782 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $19,466,641,000 after purchasing an additional 1,315,548 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 28,016,605 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $8,373,925,000 after purchasing an additional 326,979 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.1% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,042,843 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,182,331,000 after purchasing an additional 147,931 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its holdings in Accenture by 0.6% in the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 8,998,826 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,689,659,000 after purchasing an additional 56,108 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in Accenture by 63.9% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,793,889,000 after purchasing an additional 3,490,569 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Company Profile

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.