Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Position Cut by 180 Wealth Advisors LLC

180 Wealth Advisors LLC trimmed its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 37.7% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 1,038 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 629 shares during the quarter. 180 Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $365,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Rosenberg Matthew Hamilton lifted its position in Accenture by 14.1% in the fourth quarter. Rosenberg Matthew Hamilton now owns 614 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $216,000 after purchasing an additional 76 shares during the period. Signal Advisors Wealth LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 8.0% in the fourth quarter. Signal Advisors Wealth LLC now owns 3,345 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,177,000 after purchasing an additional 247 shares during the period. Horizon Bancorp Inc. IN lifted its position in Accenture by 15.9% in the fourth quarter. Horizon Bancorp Inc. IN now owns 679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $239,000 after purchasing an additional 93 shares during the period. Marcum Wealth LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 1.5% in the fourth quarter. Marcum Wealth LLC now owns 2,269 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $798,000 after purchasing an additional 33 shares during the period. Finally, Traveka Wealth LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 9.4% in the fourth quarter. Traveka Wealth LLC now owns 1,366 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $481,000 after purchasing an additional 117 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Accenture Stock Up 0.1 %

Shares of ACN opened at $349.45 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $218.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.57, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $357.98 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $344.94.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 26,125 shares of company stock valued at $9,570,260. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on ACN. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Guggenheim increased their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

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.