Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price Down 3.3% – What’s Next?

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)’s share price traded down 3.3% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as $346.62 and last traded at $349.58. 885,318 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 67% from the average session volume of 2,695,644 shares. The stock had previously closed at $361.38.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently commented on the company. Mizuho lifted their target price on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price 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. Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $218.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.58, a P/E/G ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $358.68 and a 200 day simple moving average of $331.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.71 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.69%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are usually a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Accenture by 1.8% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after buying an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.2% in the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,311,102,000 after buying an additional 131,544 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in Accenture by 1.4% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,786,256,000 after acquiring an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in 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 holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the 3rd 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 acquiring an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.