Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Upgraded at The Goldman Sachs Group

The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a neutral rating to a buy rating in a report released on Friday, MarketBeat.com reports. They currently have $420.00 price target on the information technology services provider’s stock, up from their previous price target of $370.00.

Several other equities analysts also recently commented on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Citigroup boosted their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, 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. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $372.09.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $362.70 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $226.75 billion, a PE ratio of 31.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.19 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $360.14 and its 200-day simple moving average is $333.04.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.71 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.76 earnings per share for the current year.

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 51.79%.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. Insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the second quarter worth about $26,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC increased its position in Accenture by 607.1% in the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $39,000. Institutional investors 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.