Robert W. Baird Upgrades Accenture (NYSE:ACN) to “Outperform”

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) was upgraded by equities research analysts at Robert W. Baird from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday. The brokerage currently has a $390.00 target price on the information technology services provider’s stock. Robert W. Baird’s price target would suggest a potential upside of 22.53% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on ACN. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Piper Sandler lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $388.39.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $318.28 on Monday. Accenture has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $363.01 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $358.24. The firm has a market cap of $199.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.70, 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 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 the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. This represents a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its position in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. Finally, Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth approximately $30,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.