Stephens Inc. AR Cuts Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Stephens Inc. AR cut its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 4.4% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 20,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 923 shares during the quarter. Stephens Inc. AR’s holdings in Accenture were worth $7,069,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture during the third quarter valued at $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 607.1% during 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 during the last quarter. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth approximately $35,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ACN has been the topic of a number of research reports. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price 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. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $386.04 on Monday. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. 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 $241.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.39, a PEG ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $362.30 and its two-hundred day moving average is $352.18.

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 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

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 issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.53%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.