Piper Sandler Increases Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target to $429.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective increased by investment analysts at Piper Sandler from $422.00 to $429.00 in a research note issued to investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an “overweight” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Piper Sandler’s target price suggests a potential upside of 17.09% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other brokerages have also recently issued reports on ACN. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Guggenheim boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Susquehanna increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.23.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $366.37 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $229.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.05, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $360.47 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $337.15. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are often an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,645,075.84. The trade was a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, 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. Insiders have sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the 3rd 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 buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 44.7% in the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $822,238,000 after purchasing an additional 837,677 shares during the period. 1832 Asset Management L.P. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 251.3% during the 2nd quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 995,896 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $302,165,000 after purchasing an additional 712,400 shares in the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP bought a new position in Accenture in the third quarter worth about $204,895,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 37,788.5% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $180,401,000 after buying an additional 509,011 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.