Brokerages Set Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Target Price at $387.22

Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-three brokerages that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and fifteen have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $387.22.

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the company. BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th.

Accenture Trading Up 1.6 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $397.92 on Monday. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The company has a market cap of $249.01 billion, a PE ratio of 33.38, a P/E/G ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $360.63 and its 200 day moving average price is $351.08.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.27 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

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 issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.49%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 13,255 shares of company stock valued at $4,756,101. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. State Street Corp boosted its position in Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its position in shares of 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 buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after purchasing an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB grew its position in shares of Accenture by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after purchasing an additional 1,212,011 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.5% during the third quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $668,974,000 after buying an additional 28,491 shares in the last quarter. 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.