Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Raised to $355.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective boosted by BMO Capital Markets to $355.00 in a research note published on Wednesday morning, Marketbeat.com reports. They currently have a hold rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

ACN has been the topic of several other reports. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Mizuho lowered their price objective on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.23.

Accenture Trading Down 1.4 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $304.32 on Wednesday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $354.96 and a 200-day moving average price of $355.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The firm has a market cap of $190.44 billion, a PE ratio of 25.53, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.77 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.95%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total transaction of $340,645.67. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at $10,232,419.68. This represents a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently 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.