Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Receives $377.82 Average Price Target from Analysts

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-three ratings firms that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, fifteen have issued a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 12-month target price among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $377.82.

ACN has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 26th. Finally, Guggenheim reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $279.48 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $175.05 billion, a PE ratio of 23.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. Accenture has a 52 week low of $275.01 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $324.03 and a 200 day moving average price of $349.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.77 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared 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. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.12%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. This trade represents a 3.05 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total value of $1,003,982.14. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. This represents a 17.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,291 shares of company stock worth $7,880,886 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $2,351,683,000. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 30,256.8% during the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,421,519 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,067,651,000 after acquiring an additional 3,410,248 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 22.8% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,283,225,000 after acquiring an additional 2,260,740 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $666,495,000. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,325,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares during the last quarter. 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.