Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Rating Upgraded by StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Monday.

ACN has been the subject of a number of other reports. Mizuho increased their price target on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Guggenheim upped their target price 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. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $349.14 on Monday. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $357.93 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $344.63. The firm has a market cap of $218.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

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 paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its board has authorized a share buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated 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 $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. The trade was a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its holdings in 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 buying an additional 131,544 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.4% in 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 acquiring an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during 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 worth $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in 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 period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.