Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Hits New 1-Year High – Time to Buy?

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $389.83 and last traded at $387.30, with a volume of 340739 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $385.21.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several analyst reports. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Up 1.6 %

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 50-day moving average of $361.34 and a 200 day moving average of $351.40. The stock has a market capitalization of $249.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.49%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Insider Activity

In other news, 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 value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the company’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 approximately $7,446,422.28. This represents a 18.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 13,255 shares of company stock worth $4,756,101. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA grew its position in shares of Accenture by 6.5% during the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $22,314,000 after buying an additional 3,883 shares during the last quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 78.6% during the third quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,047,000 after purchasing an additional 5,038 shares during the last quarter. MQS Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 70.6% during the 3rd quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $12,581,000 after buying an additional 14,724 shares during the last quarter. Finally, M&G PLC increased its position in Accenture by 34.1% in the third quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $103,361,000 after buying an additional 74,438 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is 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.