Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price Down 0.5% – Should You Sell?

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) dropped 0.5% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as $349.99 and last traded at $350.99. Approximately 528,553 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 81% from the average daily volume of 2,716,505 shares. The stock had previously closed at $352.79.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently commented on ACN shares. Citigroup upped their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. TD Cowen upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Guggenheim boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

The company has a market cap of $220.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.25. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $355.77 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $327.83.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.71 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. This trade represents a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth $320,000. Second Line Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter valued at $231,000. TCW Group Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 11,501 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,065,000 after acquiring an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Hohimer Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $279,000. Finally, TD Private Client Wealth LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 3.3% in the third quarter. TD Private Client Wealth LLC now owns 15,609 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $5,517,000 after purchasing an additional 504 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.