Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Upgraded at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report released on Monday.

ACN has been the topic of several other research reports. Mizuho increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $349.45 on Monday. Accenture has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $218.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.57, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $357.98 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $344.94.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.69%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 26,125 shares of company stock worth $9,570,260 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its position 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 worth $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 44.7% in the second quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $822,238,000 after purchasing an additional 837,677 shares during the period. 1832 Asset Management L.P. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 251.3% in the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 995,896 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $302,165,000 after purchasing an additional 712,400 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 2,666.5% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 715,219 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $251,607,000 after purchasing an additional 689,366 shares during the period. Finally, Holocene Advisors LP bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $204,895,000. 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.