Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Raised to $429.00 at Piper Sandler

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price target upped by Piper Sandler from $422.00 to $429.00 in a report published on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts have also commented on ACN. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Susquehanna upped their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $374.82.

Accenture Trading Up 7.1 %

ACN opened at $372.16 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $232.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.56, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $360.36 and its 200 day moving average price is $336.56. Accenture has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.59%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 over the last three months. 0.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Cornerstone Wealth Group LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 20.9% during the 2nd quarter. Cornerstone Wealth Group LLC now owns 2,287 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $694,000 after purchasing an additional 396 shares in the last quarter. Traynor Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 5.2% in the 2nd quarter. Traynor Capital Management Inc. now owns 672 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $204,000 after acquiring an additional 33 shares during the last quarter. LRI Investments LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 41.3% in the 2nd quarter. LRI Investments LLC now owns 9,587 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,909,000 after purchasing an additional 2,800 shares during the last quarter. Atlantic Union Bankshares Corp lifted its stake in Accenture by 55.0% during the second quarter. Atlantic Union Bankshares Corp now owns 27,165 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $8,242,000 after purchasing an additional 9,644 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Schwartz Investment Counsel Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 9.6% in the second quarter. Schwartz Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 250,950 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $76,141,000 after buying an additional 21,900 shares during 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.