Quadrant Capital Group LLC Lowers Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Quadrant Capital Group LLC decreased its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.1% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 7,219 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 80 shares during the period. Quadrant Capital Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,540,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture in the third quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 5.4 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $285.04 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $349.68 and its 200-day simple moving average is $354.55. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $178.53 billion, a PE ratio of 23.91, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.08%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm’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 sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of several recent research reports. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price target on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Stifel Nicolaus cut their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.23.

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.