Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Upgraded at Robert W. Baird

Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) from a neutral rating to an outperform rating in a research report released on Monday morning, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Robert W. Baird currently has $390.00 price objective on the information technology services provider’s stock.

Several other research firms have also weighed in on ACN. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. UBS Group lifted their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Piper Sandler dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 14th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $384.45.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $324.52 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $203.08 billion, a PE ratio of 27.22, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business has a 50 day moving average of $361.19 and a 200 day moving average of $357.78. Accenture has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

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 the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $21,246,236,000 after purchasing an additional 392,183 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position in Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after buying an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,750,021,000 after purchasing an additional 136,665 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,325,526,000 after buying an additional 1,770,024 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 22.8% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,283,225,000 after purchasing an additional 2,260,740 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.