Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock Position Lifted by Davis R M Inc.

Davis R M Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.3% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 144,667 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 8,634 shares during the period. Davis R M Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $51,137,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 2.0% during the third quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,447 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $511,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. BSW Wealth Partners raised its position in shares of Accenture by 0.7% in the third quarter. BSW Wealth Partners now owns 4,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,441,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Slow Capital Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.3% in the third quarter. Slow Capital Inc. now owns 9,067 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,205,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the period. NBC Securities Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 5,206 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,840,000 after acquiring an additional 30 shares during the period. Finally, Conscious Wealth Investments LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Conscious Wealth Investments LLC now owns 7,744 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,870,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently weighed in on ACN. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Susquehanna raised their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $329.00 to $395.00 in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, Guggenheim lifted their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $358.66 on Monday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $356.42 and its 200-day moving average is $329.23. The firm has a market cap of $224.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.38, a P/E/G ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.71 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.65%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. This represents a 4.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. Corporate insiders own 0.07% 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.