Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Rating Upgraded by StockNews.com

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) was upgraded by investment analysts at StockNews.com from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued on Monday.

Other equities analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $385.04.

Accenture Stock Down 2.2 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $349.93 on Monday. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $357.82 and a 200 day moving average price of $344.30. The stock has a market capitalization of $218.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 analysts’ expectations 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 last year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase 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 purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total value of $1,899,689.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 38,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,490,266.50. This represents a 11.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. This represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. State Street Corp increased its stake in Accenture by 1.8% during 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 during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its stake in Accenture by 1.2% during the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,311,102,000 after purchasing an additional 131,544 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in 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 during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 378.9% during the third 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 valued at $1,941,219,000 after purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the third 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 acquiring an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors 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.