Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Receives $387.22 Average Price Target from Brokerages

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) has earned an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-three brokerages that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and fifteen have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price target among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $387.22.

ACN has been the topic of several recent research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, UBS Group raised their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $386.04 on Monday. 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 has a fifty day moving average of $362.30 and a 200 day moving average of $352.18. The firm has a market capitalization of $241.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.39, a PEG ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings 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 valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. 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.