Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Upgraded to “Strong-Buy” at Baird R W

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) was upgraded by investment analysts at Baird R W from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report issued on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

ACN has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. UBS Group lifted their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group cut their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.04.

Accenture Trading Up 2.3 %

NYSE:ACN opened at $326.25 on Monday. Accenture has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $204.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.37, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $362.51 and a 200 day simple moving average of $358.14.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $21,246,236,000 after buying an additional 392,183 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after buying an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,750,021,000 after buying an additional 136,665 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 16.8% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,325,526,000 after buying an additional 1,770,024 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP grew its stake in Accenture by 22.8% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,283,225,000 after purchasing an additional 2,260,740 shares in 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.