Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Rating Lowered by StockNews.com

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) was downgraded by equities research analysts at StockNews.com from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued on Sunday.

Other equities analysts have also issued reports about the company. Guggenheim lifted their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.23.

Accenture Trading Down 0.7 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $351.26 on Friday. Accenture has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $357.39 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $342.94. The firm has a market cap of $219.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.73, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture announced that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This trade represents a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. State Street Corp raised its stake in Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its position in Accenture by 1.2% during the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,311,102,000 after buying an additional 131,544 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in Accenture by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,786,256,000 after acquiring an additional 80,514 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,705,100,000 after purchasing an additional 56,937 shares in 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.