Piper Sandler Raises Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Price Target to $329.00

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its target price boosted by Piper Sandler from $320.00 to $329.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday morning, Benzinga reports. Piper Sandler currently has a neutral rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other equities analysts also recently issued reports on the company. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on Accenture from $340.00 to $275.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Accenture from $330.00 to $376.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, September 6th. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on Accenture in a research report on Monday, June 24th. They set a neutral rating and a $335.00 price objective for the company. UBS Group upgraded Accenture from a neutral rating to a buy rating and set a $400.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Friday, July 19th. Finally, Morgan Stanley downgraded Accenture from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $382.00 to $300.00 in a research report on Wednesday, June 26th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $356.41.

Accenture Trading Up 0.3 %

Accenture stock opened at $336.22 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $210.71 billion, a PE ratio of 30.79, a P/E/G ratio of 3.82 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $332.01 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $321.64.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.15 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $16.47 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.55 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 10.79% and a return on equity of 27.48%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $3.19 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that Accenture will post 11.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 1,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $315.00, for a total value of $472,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 38,570 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,149,550. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total transaction of $2,696,402.25. Following the transaction, the general counsel now owns 22,849 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,564,161.45. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 1,500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $315.00, for a total value of $472,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 38,570 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,149,550. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 21,421 shares of company stock valued at $6,912,635. Company insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.1% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,718,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $20,699,110,000 after acquiring an additional 635,349 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% during the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,311,102,000 after acquiring an additional 131,544 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its holdings in Accenture by 2.0% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 8,652,537 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,999,056,000 after acquiring an additional 173,107 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.4% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,786,256,000 after acquiring an additional 80,514 shares during the period. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 4.1% during the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 3,797,028 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,316,086,000 after acquiring an additional 148,738 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Company Profile

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.