Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target Raised to $330.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price lifted by Wolfe Research from $300.00 to $330.00 in a research report sent to investors on Thursday,MarketScreener reports. Wolfe Research currently has an outperform rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

ACN has been the topic of several other reports. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $325.00 to $271.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 9th. Dbs Bank raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $330.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Robert W. Baird cut their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on Accenture from $250.00 to $270.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have issued a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $293.21.

Accenture Trading Up 0.5%

Shares of ACN opened at $271.70 on Thursday. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $229.40 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $250.48 and a two-hundred day moving average of $265.21. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a current ratio of 1.42. The company has a market capitalization of $178.91 billion, a PE ratio of 22.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.64 and a beta of 1.26.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.98 by $0.05. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.The business had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.34 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.66 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th were given a $1.63 dividend. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.4%. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 53.66%.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.57, for a total value of $2,246,130.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 23,516 shares in the company, valued at $5,868,888.12. The trade was a 27.68% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.47, for a total value of $623,675.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 1,390 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $346,763.30. This represents a 64.27% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 33,319 shares of company stock valued at $8,335,225. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Sanders Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $2,637,640,000. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Accenture in the second quarter valued at $2,216,850,000. Capital International Investors boosted its stake in Accenture by 41.1% during the 3rd quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 17,128,134 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,223,839,000 after acquiring an additional 4,984,930 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in Accenture by 63.9% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,793,889,000 after acquiring an additional 3,490,569 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 2.1% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 65,129,782 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $19,466,641,000 after purchasing an additional 1,315,548 shares during the last quarter. 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.