Spartan Planning & Wealth Management Buys New Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Spartan Planning & Wealth Management purchased a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund purchased 1,190 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $419,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. Private Advisor Group LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 16.8% during the 2nd quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 33,872 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $10,277,000 after purchasing an additional 4,881 shares during the period. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the second quarter worth approximately $28,000. Gallacher Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 18.5% in the second quarter. Gallacher Capital Management LLC now owns 892 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $271,000 after acquiring an additional 139 shares during the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 400.2% during the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 19,863 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,023,000 after acquiring an additional 15,892 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Certuity LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 6.5% in the 2nd quarter. Certuity LLC now owns 1,325 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $402,000 after purchasing an additional 81 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently commented on ACN shares. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Barclays upped their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Mizuho increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.23.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. This trade represents a 4.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN traded up $6.37 on Tuesday, hitting $357.70. 2,136,397 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,186,320. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $357.39 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $342.94. The firm has a market cap of $223.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.29, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

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.