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

Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report released on Monday morning,Zacks.com reports.

A number of other equities analysts have also weighed in on ACN. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $388.04.

Accenture Trading Up 2.3 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $326.25 on Monday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $362.51 and its 200-day moving average price is $358.14. The company has a market cap of $204.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.37, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results 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. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. Finally, Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.