Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Rating Increased to Buy at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report released on Saturday morning.

A number of other brokerages also recently commented on ACN. Guggenheim boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler upped their target price on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.23.

Accenture Stock Down 1.2 %

ACN opened at $356.18 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $222.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.16, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $359.28 and a 200-day moving average of $339.89. Accenture has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.66%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This trade represents a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $369.97, for a total value of $1,757,357.50. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 22,976 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,500,430.72. This represents a 17.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. 1ST Source Bank boosted its holdings in Accenture by 14.3% during the third quarter. 1ST Source Bank now owns 1,506 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $532,000 after purchasing an additional 188 shares in the last quarter. Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter valued at $473,000. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at $8,920,000. Castellan Group boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 4.1% in the 3rd quarter. Castellan Group now owns 8,165 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,886,000 after purchasing an additional 323 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB increased its position in shares of Accenture by 2.5% during the 3rd quarter. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB now owns 41,175 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $14,555,000 after purchasing an additional 1,015 shares in 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.