Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Receives $352.33 Consensus Price Target from Brokerages

Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-two brokerages that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and twelve have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $354.68.

A number of analysts recently commented on ACN shares. Piper Sandler decreased their price target on Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 17th. Morgan Stanley lowered Accenture from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $382.00 to $300.00 in a report on Wednesday, June 26th. Barclays reduced their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $350.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, June 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Accenture from $330.00 to $376.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, September 6th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on Accenture from $375.00 to $350.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, June 21st.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total transaction of $2,696,402.25. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 22,849 shares in the company, valued at $7,564,161.45. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total value of $2,696,402.25. Following the transaction, the general counsel now owns 22,849 shares in the company, valued at $7,564,161.45. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.22, for a total value of $927,660.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 40,070 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,390,445.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 21,421 shares of company stock valued at $6,912,635. Company insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Accenture by 1.1% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,718,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $20,699,110,000 after acquiring an additional 635,349 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its position in Accenture by 1.2% during the 2nd 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 acquiring an additional 131,544 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 2.0% in the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 8,652,537 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,999,056,000 after purchasing an additional 173,107 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.4% in 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 purchasing an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth approximately $2,061,490,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Trading Down 0.1 %

Shares of ACN opened at $349.90 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $219.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.04, a PEG ratio of 3.60 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $327.07 and a 200 day moving average of $324.00. Accenture has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.15 by ($0.02). The business had revenue of $16.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.55 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 10.79% and a return on equity of 27.48%. The business’s revenue was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.19 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Accenture will post 11.95 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, July 11th were paid a dividend of $1.29 per share. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.47%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 11th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 47.25%.

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.