Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Shares Up 1.5% – What’s Next?

Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) shot up 1.5% during trading on Thursday . The company traded as high as $362.36 and last traded at $362.36. 275,274 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 90% from the average session volume of 2,709,974 shares. The stock had previously closed at $357.07.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently commented on ACN. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research note on Monday, September 30th. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Finally, UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Up 1.3 %

The firm has a market capitalization of $226.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.70, a P/E/G ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $356.03 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $328.39.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.71 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.64%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total value of $2,945,801.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,188 shares in the company, valued at $4,412,909.16. This represents a 40.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Vident Advisory LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 8.2% during the 1st quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 11,563 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,009,000 after purchasing an additional 874 shares during the last quarter. CreativeOne Wealth LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 7.2% in the 1st quarter. CreativeOne Wealth LLC now owns 4,558 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,580,000 after acquiring an additional 306 shares during the last quarter. Capital Group Private Client Services Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 115.2% in the 1st quarter. Capital Group Private Client Services Inc. now owns 47,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $16,442,000 after purchasing an additional 25,390 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 196.5% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 988,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $342,483,000 after acquiring an additional 654,807 shares during the period. Finally, Capital International Inc. CA bought a new position in Accenture in the 1st quarter worth approximately $1,063,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.