Brokerages Set Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) PT at $378.91

Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-three analysts that are covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, fifteen have issued a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $378.23.

Several analysts have issued reports on the stock. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 26th. Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Baird R W raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Mizuho reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective 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.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $312.78 on Tuesday. Accenture has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $195.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.24, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $354.17 and its 200 day simple moving average is $355.81.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.89%. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 48.89%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. This represents a 14.91 % 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 valued at $8,181,753 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter worth about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth approximately $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 64.2% in 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 during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.