Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Cut to Hold at StockNews.com

StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Friday morning.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on ACN. Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $383.23.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $366.37 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $229.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $360.47 and its 200-day moving average price is $337.49.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.62%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

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

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.24, for a total transaction of $1,866,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,593 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,566,411.32. The trade was a 22.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. Insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 78.6% during the third quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,047,000 after buying an additional 5,038 shares during the period. MQS Management LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 70.6% in the 3rd quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $12,581,000 after acquiring an additional 14,724 shares in the last quarter. M&G PLC boosted its position in Accenture by 34.1% during the third quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $103,361,000 after purchasing an additional 74,438 shares in the last quarter. Finally, BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp grew its position in shares of Accenture by 18.7% in the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 172,199 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $52,247,000 after buying an additional 27,168 shares during the last quarter. 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.