Analysts Set Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) Price Target at $365.43

Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) has received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-four research firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, seven have given a hold recommendation, fifteen have issued a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $360.21.

A number of equities analysts recently commented on ACN shares. Argus set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. Mizuho set a $348.00 target price on Accenture and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, June 24th. Barclays decreased their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $360.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft began coverage on Accenture in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. They set a “hold” rating and a $290.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Guggenheim decreased their price objective on Accenture from $360.00 to $335.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 23rd.

Accenture Trading Down 1.7%

NYSE:ACN opened at $274.07 on Monday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $300.06 and a 200 day simple moving average of $320.74. The firm has a market capitalization of $171.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.64 and a beta of 1.29. Accenture has a 1-year low of $272.39 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. The company had revenue of $17.73 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.26 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 26.55%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.13 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.16%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 47.13%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total value of $141,170.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,283 shares in the company, valued at approximately $644,582.22. The trade was a 17.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 15,882 shares in the company, valued at $5,161,650. The trade was a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 5,454 shares of company stock worth $1,646,780. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 36.2% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,486,000 after purchasing an additional 4,905 shares during the period. New Age Alpha Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 6,335.5% during the fourth quarter. New Age Alpha Advisors LLC now owns 1,995 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $702,000 after buying an additional 1,964 shares during the last quarter. Level Four Advisory Services LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 10.9% in the fourth quarter. Level Four Advisory Services LLC now owns 2,968 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,044,000 after acquiring an additional 291 shares during the period. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 2.7% in the fourth quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 11,844 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,167,000 after acquiring an additional 306 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Maridea Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $209,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by 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.