Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Raised to $425.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price boosted by BMO Capital Markets from $390.00 to $425.00 in a research report report published on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. BMO Capital Markets currently has a market perform rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on ACN. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Guggenheim raised their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. TD Cowen raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Piper Sandler Companies reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.23.

Accenture Trading Down 1.6 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $366.37 on Friday. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $360.47 and its 200 day simple moving average is $337.49. Accenture has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $229.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. Analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.62%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. The trade was a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total value of $1,899,689.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 38,825 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. This represents a 11.59 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. 1ST Source Bank lifted its stake in Accenture by 14.3% in the third quarter. 1ST Source Bank now owns 1,506 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $532,000 after purchasing an additional 188 shares during the last quarter. Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $473,000. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas purchased a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at about $8,920,000. Castellan Group grew its position in Accenture by 4.1% during the 3rd quarter. Castellan Group now owns 8,165 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,886,000 after acquiring an additional 323 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB lifted its position in Accenture by 2.5% in the third quarter. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB now owns 41,175 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $14,555,000 after purchasing an additional 1,015 shares during the last quarter. 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.