Analysts Set Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) PT at $377.82

Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) have been assigned an average rating of "Moderate Buy" from the twenty-three brokerages that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, fifteen have issued a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $377.82.

ACN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 16th. Guggenheim lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a "peer perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN traded up $9.46 on Friday, hitting $293.42. The company's stock had a trading volume of 436,262 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,405,036. Accenture has a 12-month low of $275.01 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $183.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $321.93 and a 200-day moving average of $348.57.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.77 earnings per share. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.02%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company's stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $361.09, for a total transaction of $902,725.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 19,737 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $7,126,833.33. This represents a 11.24 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 22,291 shares of company stock worth $7,880,886. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Community Financial Services Group LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 3.3% in the first quarter. Community Financial Services Group LLC now owns 5,382 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,679,000 after purchasing an additional 170 shares during the period. LaFleur & Godfrey LLC increased its position in Accenture by 9.4% in the 1st quarter. LaFleur & Godfrey LLC now owns 4,685 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,462,000 after acquiring an additional 403 shares during the period. Petros Family Wealth LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 23.9% during the 1st quarter. Petros Family Wealth LLC now owns 4,215 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,315,000 after acquiring an additional 812 shares in the last quarter. YHB Investment Advisors Inc. raised its stake in Accenture by 2.0% during the 1st quarter. YHB Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 9,547 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $2,979,000 after acquiring an additional 184 shares in the last quarter. Finally, WoodTrust Financial Corp raised its stake in Accenture by 29.7% during the 1st quarter. WoodTrust Financial Corp now owns 5,600 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,748,000 after acquiring an additional 1,284 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Accenture Company Profile

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.