Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC Boosts Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC boosted its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 126.8% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 22,391 shares during the period. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC's holdings in Accenture were worth $14,090,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $3,311,102,000 after acquiring an additional 131,544 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,786,256,000 after buying an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after buying an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Sunday, January 5th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a "market perform" rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $385.04.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE:ACN traded down $7.80 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $349.93. 2,829,981 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,638,580. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $357.74 and a 200 day moving average price of $343.47. The company has a market cap of $218.98 billion, a PE ratio of 30.62, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.69%. 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 repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total value of $1,899,689.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 38,825 shares of the company's stock, valued at $14,490,266.50. This represents a 11.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099. 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.