Regal Investment Advisors LLC Has $1.93 Million Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Regal Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 419.1% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 5,471 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after acquiring an additional 4,417 shares during the quarter. Regal Investment Advisors LLC's holdings in Accenture were worth $1,925,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Montag & Caldwell LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 19.5% in the 4th quarter. Montag & Caldwell LLC now owns 29,614 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $10,418,000 after buying an additional 4,839 shares during the period. Kane Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $656,000. Schwerin Boyle Capital Management Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 0.3% during the 4th quarter. Schwerin Boyle Capital Management Inc. now owns 116,815 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $41,094,000 after purchasing an additional 325 shares in the last quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 9.1% during the fourth quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 30,609 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $10,768,000 after buying an additional 2,547 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Rossby Financial LCC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $202,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several research reports. Baird R W raised Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Guggenheim cut their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $390.00 price target for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $377.82.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock traded down $2.96 during trading on Friday, hitting $282.28. 2,320,335 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,007,591. 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 $275.01 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $326.22 and a 200-day moving average price of $349.73. The stock has a market capitalization of $176.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.77 earnings per share. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities 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. Investors 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 yield of 2.10%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio is 48.89%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares of the company's stock, valued at $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction of $47,641.10. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. This trade represents a 3.05 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 23,778 shares of company stock worth $8,408,087 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.02% of the company's stock.

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.