Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Reaches New 1-Year High at $330.61

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high on Monday . The stock traded as high as $330.61 and last traded at $330.59, with a volume of 558536 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $327.83.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Citigroup restated a “buy” rating and issued a $358.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research report on Monday, September 18th. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on Accenture from $312.00 to $300.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 29th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on Accenture from $360.00 to $350.00 in a research report on Friday, September 29th. Redburn Atlantic initiated coverage on Accenture in a research report on Thursday. They issued a “buy” rating and a $410.00 target price for the company. Finally, TD Cowen dropped their target price on Accenture from $312.00 to $300.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 29th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $337.26.

Accenture Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $207.69 billion, a PE ratio of 30.44, a PEG ratio of 3.02 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a 50 day moving average of $309.87 and a two-hundred day moving average of $308.18.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 28th. The information technology services provider reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.65 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $15.99 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.07 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 29.74% and a net margin of 10.72%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.60 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.1 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 12th were issued a $1.29 dividend. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.56%. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.12. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, October 11th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 47.91%.

Accenture announced that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $314.68, for a total transaction of $2,832,120.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 26,830 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,442,864.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $314.68, for a total transaction of $2,832,120.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 26,830 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,442,864.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $295.60, for a total value of $739,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 21,885 shares in the company, valued at $6,469,206. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 36,334 shares of company stock valued at $10,939,027. 0.08% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL bought a new position in Accenture in the first quarter valued at about $28,000. Barrett & Company Inc. purchased a new stake in Accenture in the first quarter worth about $29,000. Sageworth Trust Co increased its position in Accenture by 872.7% in the first quarter. Sageworth Trust Co now owns 107 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 96 shares in the last quarter. BluePath Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter worth about $31,000. Finally, Guardian Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture in the first quarter worth about $32,000. Institutional investors own 70.42% 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.