Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) has received an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-two ratings firms that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price target among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $358.09.

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $375.00 to $350.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. TD Cowen dropped their price objective on Accenture from $294.00 to $293.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Friday. Wedbush dropped their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $350.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, June 12th. Citigroup dropped their price objective on Accenture from $430.00 to $400.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 22nd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on Accenture from $340.00 to $275.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, June 5th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total transaction of $1,536,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 13,699 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,208,606.78. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,333 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.12, for a total value of $1,369,747.96. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 30,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,705,516.24. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total value of $1,536,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 13,699 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,208,606.78. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 28,083 shares of company stock valued at $8,959,325 in the last quarter. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 7.4% in the 4th quarter. McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc. now owns 29,204 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $10,248,000 after buying an additional 2,008 shares during the last quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 3.6% during the 4th quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC now owns 3,646 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,279,000 after purchasing an additional 125 shares during the last quarter. Buckingham Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 3.4% during the 4th quarter. Buckingham Capital Management Inc. now owns 27,559 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,671,000 after purchasing an additional 900 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 2.3% during the 3rd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 4,284,770 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,315,832,000 after purchasing an additional 96,414 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Redwood Investments LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 8.3% during the 4th quarter. Redwood Investments LLC now owns 20,227 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $7,098,000 after purchasing an additional 1,542 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Up 0.9 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $308.98 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $301.15 and its 200 day simple moving average is $337.27. The company has a market cap of $207.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.35 and a beta of 1.21. Accenture has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.15 by ($0.02). The company had revenue of $16.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.55 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.19 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Accenture will post 12 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 11th will be given a dividend of $1.29 per share. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.67%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 11th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 47.25%.

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.