Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Raised to $385.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price lifted by Jefferies Financial Group from $355.00 to $385.00 in a research note issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a “hold” rating on the information technology services provider’s stock. Jefferies Financial Group’s price target indicates a potential upside of 4.93% from the company’s current price.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. UBS Group raised their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $381.64.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock traded down $5.26 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $366.90. 1,580,045 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,688,979. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $360.36 and its 200-day simple moving average is $336.56. Accenture has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The company has a market capitalization of $229.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.10, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

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

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

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. 1ST Source Bank lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 14.3% during the third quarter. 1ST Source Bank now owns 1,506 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $532,000 after purchasing an additional 188 shares during the last quarter. Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $473,000. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $8,920,000. Castellan Group increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.1% in the 3rd quarter. Castellan Group now owns 8,165 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,886,000 after acquiring an additional 323 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB raised its position in shares of Accenture by 2.5% during the 3rd quarter. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB now owns 41,175 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $14,555,000 after acquiring an additional 1,015 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.