Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Raised to $380.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target upped by Morgan Stanley from $335.00 to $380.00 in a report published on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an equal weight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. UBS Group upped their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price for the company. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. StockNews.com raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.22.

Accenture Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $384.88 on Friday. 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 has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $240.86 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.33 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $359.56 and a 200 day moving average price of $350.06.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.27 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.54%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total value of $1,723,205.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 20,526 shares in the company, valued at $7,446,422.28. The trade was a 18.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 13,255 shares of company stock worth $4,756,101 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Finally, Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.