Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Increased to $405.00 by Analysts at Citigroup

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target upped by Citigroup from $350.00 to $405.00 in a research report report published on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a buy rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other analysts have also weighed in on ACN. Morgan Stanley lowered shares of Accenture from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and lowered their price target for the company from $382.00 to $300.00 in a report on Wednesday, June 26th. UBS Group raised Accenture from a neutral rating to a buy rating and set a $400.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Friday, July 19th. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on Accenture from $293.00 to $321.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Wedbush reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $350.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $375.00 to $350.00 and set a market perform rating on the stock in a report on Friday, June 21st. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $354.91.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $336.93 on Tuesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $329.94 and a 200 day moving average price of $322.59. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $211.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.85, a P/E/G ratio of 3.82 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.15 by ($0.02). Accenture had a net margin of 10.79% and a return on equity of 27.48%. The business had revenue of $16.47 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.55 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.19 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts expect that Accenture will post 11.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 11th were issued a $1.29 dividend. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 11th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 47.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $315.00, for a total transaction of $472,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 38,570 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,149,550. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other Accenture news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total transaction of $1,649,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 8,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,964,751.98. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 1,500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $315.00, for a total transaction of $472,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 38,570 shares in the company, valued at $12,149,550. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,421 shares of company stock worth $6,912,635 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.1% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,718,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $20,699,110,000 after buying an additional 635,349 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its position in Accenture by 1.2% during the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,311,102,000 after purchasing an additional 131,544 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors increased its position in shares of Accenture by 2.0% during the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 8,652,537 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,999,056,000 after purchasing an additional 173,107 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.4% during the 2nd 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. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.1% in the 1st quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 3,797,028 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,316,086,000 after buying an additional 148,738 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.