McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc. Decreases Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc. decreased its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 13,815 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 400 shares during the period. McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $4,860,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 6.8% during the 4th quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 473,408 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $166,540,000 after acquiring an additional 30,154 shares in the last quarter. R Squared Ltd bought a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $243,000. Capital Investment Counsel LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 1.5% during the fourth quarter. Capital Investment Counsel LLC now owns 17,784 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,256,000 after purchasing an additional 268 shares in the last quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 127.1% during the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $817,000 after purchasing an additional 1,300 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Mayflower Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.8% in the 4th quarter. Mayflower Financial Advisors LLC now owns 2,855 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,004,000 after buying an additional 104 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently commented on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. UBS Group raised their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $383.74.

Accenture Stock Up 1.5 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $378.61 on Wednesday. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. 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 cap of $236.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.76, a PEG ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $358.27 and its two-hundred day moving average is $349.02.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders 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 yield of 1.56%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, 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 document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 16,446 shares of company stock valued at $5,852,848 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.