Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd Sells 47 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd lowered its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 8.9% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 482 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 47 shares during the period. Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd’s holdings in Accenture were worth $170,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Swedbank AB grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 16.6% during the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $901,967,000 after purchasing an additional 363,401 shares during the last quarter. Integrated Investment Consultants LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $377,000. Navellier & Associates Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $216,000. CFS Investment Advisory Services LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 13.9% in the 3rd quarter. CFS Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 1,060 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $375,000 after acquiring an additional 129 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Biltmore Family Office LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $215,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on ACN shares. Mizuho cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. Piper Sandler cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Guggenheim dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

NYSE:ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.60, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 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 plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $359.16 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $357.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. Accenture’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This 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 can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, 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 sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. Company 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.