Cim Investment Management Inc. Sells 69 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Cim Investment Management Inc. lowered its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 2,890 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 69 shares during the quarter. Cim Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,022,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. ORG Partners LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $424,000. AdvisorNet Financial Inc grew its stake in Accenture by 9.2% in the 2nd quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 986 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $299,000 after buying an additional 83 shares in the last quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC grew its stake in Accenture by 54.0% in the 2nd quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC now owns 40,544 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,301,000 after buying an additional 14,225 shares in the last quarter. Silver Lake Advisory LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $2,496,000. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its stake in Accenture by 4.8% in the 2nd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 24,693 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $7,492,000 after buying an additional 1,142 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN traded down $8.03 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $355.81. The stock had a trading volume of 158,701 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,677,331. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $360.63 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $334.07. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $222.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.22 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.71 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.66%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program 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 purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently weighed in on ACN. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday. Citigroup raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $373.32.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total value of $2,945,801.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,412,909.16. This represents a 40.03 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 over the last quarter. 0.07% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture 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.