Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Rating Increased to Outperform at Robert W. Baird

Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a neutral rating to an outperform rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday morning, MarketBeat reports. They currently have $390.00 target price on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Other analysts also recently issued research reports about the company. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. UBS Group lifted their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.04.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN stock opened at $326.25 on Monday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $362.51 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $358.14. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a market cap of $204.16 billion, a PE ratio of 27.37, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35.

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

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Members Wealth LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $261,000. Lansforsakringar Fondforvaltning AB publ bought a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $72,926,000. Capstone Triton Financial Group LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 43.0% during the fourth quarter. Capstone Triton Financial Group LLC now owns 2,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $961,000 after purchasing an additional 822 shares during the last quarter. TFR Capital LLC. bought a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $1,792,000. Finally, Park Square Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $31,000. 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.