Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) has earned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-three brokerages that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $385.04.

Several research firms recently commented on ACN. Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Guggenheim boosted their price target on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Bank of America increased their price objective on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th.

Accenture Trading Up 0.4 %

ACN stock opened at $357.74 on Thursday. Accenture has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $357.48 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $343.37. The firm has a market cap of $223.87 billion, a PE ratio of 31.30, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm 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. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total transaction of $1,899,689.80. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 38,825 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. This trade represents a 11.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture during the third quarter worth about $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its position in shares of 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 valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Finally, Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter worth approximately $51,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.