Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Upgraded to “Outperform” at Robert W. Baird

Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a neutral rating to an outperform rating in a research report report published on Monday morning, Marketbeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has $390.00 price objective on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other research firms have also recently issued reports on ACN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $384.45.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $324.52 on Monday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $361.19 and a 200-day simple moving average of $357.78. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a market capitalization of $203.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.22, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35.

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in Accenture during the third quarter worth $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $30,000. 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.