Accenture’s (ACN) Buy Rating Reiterated at UBS Group

UBS Group restated their buy rating on shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) in a research report report published on Thursday, MarketBeat reports. UBS Group currently has a $395.00 price objective on the information technology services provider’s stock, up from their prior price objective of $390.00.

Several other research analysts have also issued reports on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Wall Street Zen lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, Piper Sandler reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 16th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $382.14.

Accenture Trading Down 0.5%

Accenture stock opened at $316.22 on Thursday. Accenture has a 12 month low of $275.01 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The stock has a market cap of $198.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $302.36 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $340.47. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.77 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.87%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 9,965 shares in the company, valued at $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction of $47,641.10. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. The trade was a 3.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture by 5.7% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,814,234 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $19,912,594,000 after acquiring an additional 3,419,577 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,750,021,000 after purchasing an additional 136,665 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.8% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,325,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its stake in Accenture by 22.8% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,283,225,000 after buying an additional 2,260,740 shares during the period. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in Accenture by 63.9% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,793,889,000 after buying an additional 3,490,569 shares during 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.