Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Rating Upgraded by Wolfe Research

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) was upgraded by research analysts at Wolfe Research from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, MarketBeat reports. The firm currently has a $425.00 price objective on the information technology services provider’s stock. Wolfe Research’s target price points to a potential upside of 18.80% from the stock’s previous close.

Several other equities analysts also recently commented on ACN. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. Finally, Bank of America upped their price objective on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $385.04.

Accenture Trading Up 0.4 %

Shares of ACN opened at $357.74 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $223.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.30, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $357.74 and its 200 day simple moving average is $343.47. Accenture has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51.

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

Accenture announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase program 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 shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the 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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This represents a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 5,000 shares of Accenture 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. This trade represents a 22.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,311,102,000 after acquiring an additional 131,544 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.4% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,786,256,000 after purchasing an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its position in 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,705,100,000 after buying an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. 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.