Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Given Neutral Rating at Robert W. Baird

Robert W. Baird reaffirmed their neutral rating on shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) in a report released on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $370.00 price objective on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other equities analysts also recently weighed in on ACN. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Bank of America lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $329.00 to $395.00 in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $352.42 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $220.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.83, a P/E/G ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $359.37 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $331.89.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.71 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.76 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture announced that its board has approved a share buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.68%. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were 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 in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 in the last three months. 0.07% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,447 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $511,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. BSW Wealth Partners increased its position in Accenture by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. BSW Wealth Partners now owns 4,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,441,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. Slow Capital Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Slow Capital Inc. now owns 9,067 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,205,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the period. Tradition Wealth Management LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,871,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the period. Finally, NBC Securities Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 5,206 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,840,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.