Piper Sandler Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective lifted by Piper Sandler from $422.00 to $429.00 in a research report report published on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. Piper Sandler currently has an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other brokerages have also commented on ACN. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Bank of America increased their price objective on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.23.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $366.37 on Thursday. Accenture has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The stock 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. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $360.47 and a 200 day moving average price of $337.49.

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

Accenture announced that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.62%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total value of $2,945,801.52. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,412,909.16. This represents a 40.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 over the last quarter. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. State Street Corp grew its position in Accenture by 1.8% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,311,102,000 after acquiring an additional 131,544 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in Accenture by 1.4% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,786,256,000 after purchasing an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 378.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,705,100,000 after purchasing an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.