Analysts Set Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) PT at $388.96

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) has been assigned an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-three ratings firms that are covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month price target among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $388.96.

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on ACN shares. Piper Sandler boosted their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. UBS Group upped their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $345.84 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $216.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.01, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $366.68 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $358.37.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.27 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Park Square Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth $31,000. Menard Financial Group LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $125,000. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $225,217,000. Fidelity D & D Bancorp Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 6.4% during the 4th quarter. Fidelity D & D Bancorp Inc. now owns 745 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $262,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Brucke Financial Inc. bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth approximately $629,000. 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.