Wambolt & Associates LLC Has $518,000 Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Wambolt & Associates LLC cut its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.6% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 1,473 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 175 shares during the quarter. Wambolt & Associates LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $518,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of 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 buying an additional 392,183 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its stake in Accenture by 1.8% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 2.9% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,746,455,000 after acquiring an additional 140,726 shares during the period. Finally, Amundi grew its stake in Accenture by 27.9% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,353,909,000 after buying an additional 826,038 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. This represents a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, 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. Insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on ACN shares. UBS Group decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $378.91.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $307.24 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $192.27 billion, a PE ratio of 25.78, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $358.32 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $357.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.93%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

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.