Piper Sandler Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture (NYSE:ACNFree Report) had its price target lifted by Piper Sandler from $422.00 to $429.00 in a research report report published on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

ACN has been the topic of a number of other reports. Piper Sandler Companies restated a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 20th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. TD Cowen raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Mizuho upped their price objective on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $374.82.

Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on ACN

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $372.16 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $232.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.56, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $360.36 and its 200 day moving average price is $336.56. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACNGet Free Report) last posted its 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 return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.59%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated 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 reacquire up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, COO John F. Walsh sold 5,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.24, for a total value of $1,866,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,593 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,566,411.32. The trade was a 22.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total transaction of $1,899,689.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 38,825 shares in the company, valued at $14,490,266.50. The trade was a 11.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661. Company insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the second quarter valued at $28,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% in the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares during the period. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth about $39,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Accenture

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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.

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