Essex Financial Services Inc. Acquires 90 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Essex Financial Services Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 3,206 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 90 shares during the period. Essex Financial Services Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,128,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Mill Creek Capital Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 3.2% during the 4th quarter. Mill Creek Capital Advisors LLC now owns 2,081 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $732,000 after buying an additional 65 shares in the last quarter. Focus Financial Network Inc. raised its stake in Accenture by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. Focus Financial Network Inc. now owns 4,423 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,556,000 after acquiring an additional 35 shares during the period. Summit Trail Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 57.8% in the fourth quarter. Summit Trail Advisors LLC now owns 9,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,432,000 after purchasing an additional 3,572 shares during the period. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its stake in shares of 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Sapient Capital LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 14.7% during the 4th quarter. Sapient Capital LLC now owns 5,758 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,026,000 after purchasing an additional 737 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction 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 sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % 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, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have issued reports on ACN. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $390.21 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $362.81 and a 200-day moving average price of $352.74. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The stock has a market cap of $244.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.52%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

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.