Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Raised to $425.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target lifted by BMO Capital Markets from $390.00 to $425.00 in a report published on Friday,Benzinga reports. BMO Capital Markets currently has a market perform rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

ACN has been the topic of a number of other research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday. BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Guggenheim boosted their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.23.

Accenture Stock Down 1.6 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $366.37 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $360.47 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $337.49. The company has a market capitalization of $229.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.05, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month 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 net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.62%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its board has authorized a stock 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 purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. This trade represents a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 in the last ninety days. 0.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the second quarter valued at approximately $28,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter worth $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its position in Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $39,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently 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.