JPMorgan Chase & Co. Issues Positive Forecast for Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective lifted by JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $349.00 to $353.00 in a research report sent to investors on Monday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an overweight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other analysts have also recently weighed in on ACN. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Barclays cut their price objective on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 24th. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 target price (up previously from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. Finally, Guggenheim cut their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $380.00.

Accenture Trading Up 0.8%

ACN stock opened at $314.12 on Monday. Accenture has a 1-year low of $275.01 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The business’s 50 day moving average is $306.16 and its 200-day moving average is $335.06. The firm has a market cap of $196.74 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.35, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.33.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.77 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.88%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total value of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 15,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,161,650. The trade was a 13.60% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at $1,512,111.60. The trade was a 3.05% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366 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 added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Park Square Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth $31,000. Finally, Promus Capital LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth about $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.