Financial Counselors Inc. Has $12.19 Million Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Financial Counselors Inc. increased its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 11.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 34,497 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,602 shares during the quarter. Financial Counselors Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $12,194,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $26,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth about $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 607.1% in the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth approximately $39,000. Finally, Tsfg LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 31.1% in the second quarter. Tsfg LLC now owns 135 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $41,000 after buying an additional 32 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on ACN shares. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BNP Paribas downgraded 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. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $362.16 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $358.15 and a 200 day simple moving average of $330.46. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $226.41 billion, a PE ratio of 31.69, a PEG ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.63%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its board has authorized a stock buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. The trade was a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.07% 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.