Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Receives “Buy” Rating from Citigroup

Citigroup reissued their buy rating on shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) in a research report sent to investors on Monday morning, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a $358.00 target price on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts have also issued reports on ACN. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $316.00 to $332.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Friday, September 8th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $292.00 to $377.00 in a report on Friday, June 9th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $340.00 to $356.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, September 12th. Societe Generale upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $314.00 to $373.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Friday, July 7th. Finally, TD Cowen upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $300.00 to $312.00 and gave the stock a market perform rating in a report on Tuesday, September 12th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $335.25.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $315.91 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $209.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.15, a PEG ratio of 2.70 and a beta of 1.22. Accenture has a one year low of $242.80 and a one year high of $330.43. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $316.31 and a 200 day moving average price of $296.37.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 22nd. The information technology services provider reported $3.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.96 by $0.23. The firm had revenue of $16.56 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.49 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.28% and a return on equity of 30.47%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.79 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 11.6 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,250 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $315.00, for a total transaction of $1,653,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 21,958 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,916,770. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,250 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $315.00, for a total transaction of $1,653,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 21,958 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,916,770. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 7,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, July 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $320.60, for a total value of $2,244,200.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 36,034 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,552,500.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 25,774 shares of company stock worth $8,138,451 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.08% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at $1,850,765,000. Osaic Holdings Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 2,444.1% in the second quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 5,922,292 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $75,320,000 after buying an additional 5,689,509 shares in the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 101,214.0% in the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 4,040,402 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,078,141,000 after buying an additional 4,036,414 shares in the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the first quarter valued at $638,488,000. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted its holdings in Accenture by 14.9% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 16,642,841 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,440,976,000 after purchasing an additional 2,163,582 shares during the last quarter. 70.42% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Company Profile

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, interactive, 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 comprises 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 comprises turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.