Comparing MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) and Accenture (NYSE:ACN)

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) and MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) are both large-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, earnings and valuation.

Profitability

This table compares Accenture and MSCI’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Accenture	10.79%	27.48%	14.59%
MSCI	43.86%	-143.09%	21.30%

Volatility & Risk

Accenture has a beta of 1.23, indicating that its stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MSCI has a beta of 1.1, indicating that its stock price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Accenture pays an annual dividend of $5.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. MSCI pays an annual dividend of $6.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Accenture pays out 47.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MSCI pays out 43.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Accenture has raised its dividend for 19 consecutive years. Accenture is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

75.1% of Accenture shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.0% of MSCI shares are held by institutional investors. 0.1% of Accenture shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.2% of MSCI shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Accenture and MSCI’s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Accenture	$64.48 billion	3.24	$6.87 billion	$10.92	30.55
MSCI	$2.70 billion	16.46	$1.15 billion	$14.65	38.34

Accenture has higher revenue and earnings than MSCI. Accenture is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MSCI, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Accenture and MSCI, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Accenture	0	10	11	0	2.52
MSCI	0	7	9	0	2.56

Accenture presently has a consensus target price of $352.33, suggesting a potential upside of 5.62%. MSCI has a consensus target price of $584.79, suggesting a potential upside of 4.12%. Given Accenture’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Accenture is more favorable than MSCI.

Summary

MSCI beats Accenture on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

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. It also provides change management, HR transformation and delivery, organization strategy and design, talent strategy and development, and leadership and culture services; digital commerce; infrastructure services, including cloud infrastructure managed, cloud and data center, network, digital workplace, database platforms, service management, and cloud and infrastructure security services; data-enabled operating models; technology consulting and AI services; and technology consulting services. In addition, the company offers engineering and R&D digitization, smart connected products, product as-a-service enablement, capital projects, intelligent asset management, digital industrial workforce, and autonomous robotic systems; business process outsourcing; and services related to technology innovation. Further, it provides cloud, ecosystem, marketing, security, supply chain management, zero-based transformation, customer experience, finance consulting, mergers and acquisitions, and sustainability services. The company has a collaboration with Salesforce, Inc. to develop Salesforce Life Sciences Cloud. The company was founded in 1951 and is based in Dublin, Ireland.

About MSCI

MSCI Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct. The Analytics segment offers risk management, performance attribution and portfolio management content, application, an integrated view of risk and return service, and an analysis of market, credit, liquidity, counterparty, and climate risk across asset classes; managed services, including consolidation of client portfolio data, review and reconciliation of input data and results, and customized reporting; and HedgePlatform to measure, evaluate, and monitor the risk of hedge fund investments. The ESG and Climate segment provides products and services that help institutional investors understand how ESG impacts the long-term risk and return of their portfolio and individual security-level investments; and data, ratings, research, and tools to help investors navigate increasing regulation. The All Other Private Assets segment includes real estate and infrastructure data, benchmarks, return-analytics, climate assessments and market insights; business intelligence to real estate owners, managers, developers, and brokers; and offers investment decision support tools for private capital. The Private Capital Solutions segment offers tools to help private asset investors across mission-critical workflows, such as sourcing terms and conditions, evaluating operating performance, managing risk and other activities supporting private capital investing. MSCI Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in New York, New York.