Peapack Gladstone Financial Corp Sells 1,212 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Peapack Gladstone Financial Corp reduced its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.3% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 52,317 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,212 shares during the period. Peapack Gladstone Financial Corp’s holdings in Accenture were worth $18,404,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its position in Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Baird R W raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 26th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $378.23.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total transaction of $340,645.67. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. This represents a 14.91 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Down 5.4 %

ACN stock opened at $285.04 on Friday. The company’s 50 day moving average is $349.68 and its 200 day moving average is $354.55. The stock has a market cap of $178.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.77 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given 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 2.08%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

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.