Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Rating Upgraded by Baird R W

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) was upgraded by stock analysts at Baird R W from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on ACN. Piper Sandler decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 14th. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.65.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $324.21 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $202.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.20, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $361.86 and its 200 day simple moving average is $358.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week 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 (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Swedbank AB grew its position in Accenture by 16.6% in the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $901,967,000 after acquiring an additional 363,401 shares during the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Pathstone Holdings LLC grew its position in Accenture by 2.5% in the third quarter. Pathstone Holdings LLC now owns 94,866 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $33,533,000 after acquiring an additional 2,307 shares during the last quarter. Caprock Group LLC grew its position in Accenture by 12.5% in the third quarter. Caprock Group LLC now owns 97,059 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $34,309,000 after acquiring an additional 10,750 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Meeder Asset Management Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 24.8% in the third quarter. Meeder Asset Management Inc. now owns 378 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $134,000 after acquiring an additional 75 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors 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.