Pines Wealth Management LLC Invests $377,000 in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Pines Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm purchased 1,079 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $377,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 2.0% during the third quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,447 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $511,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. BSW Wealth Partners grew its position in Accenture by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. BSW Wealth Partners now owns 4,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,441,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Slow Capital Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 0.3% in the third quarter. Slow Capital Inc. now owns 9,067 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,205,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the period. Tradition Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,871,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the period. Finally, NBC Securities Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.6% during the third quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 5,206 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,840,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Up 0.1 %

NYSE:ACN opened at $349.45 on Thursday. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The company has a market capitalization of $218.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The firm 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 issued its quarterly earnings data 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 firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

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

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have weighed in on ACN. Susquehanna increased their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Bank of America increased their price target on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday. TD Cowen raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $385.04.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 26,125 shares of company stock valued at $9,570,260. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.