Peoples Financial Services CORP. Boosts Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Peoples Financial Services CORP. lifted its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 30.7% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 894 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 210 shares during the period. Peoples Financial Services CORP.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $314,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after acquiring an additional 85 shares during the period. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $39,000. Finally, Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $51,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Susquehanna increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This trade represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Down 0.2 %

NYSE ACN opened at $348.34 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $217.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.48, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $357.98 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $344.94. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.70%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture 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.