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

StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report sent to investors on Sunday.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently issued reports on ACN. Mizuho lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.23.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $356.70 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $357.26 and a 200-day simple moving average of $343.27. Accenture has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $223.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.21, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.74 EPS for the current year.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp raised its position in Accenture by 1.8% in the third 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 lifted 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 worth $3,311,102,000 after acquiring an additional 131,544 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 80,514 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the third 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during 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. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.