Alliancebernstein L.P. lowered its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 1.2% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,708,267 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after selling 33,715 shares during the period. Alliancebernstein L.P. owned approximately 0.43% of Accenture worth $952,741,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.
Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Encompass More Asset Management boosted its holdings in Accenture by 8.6% in the third quarter. Encompass More Asset Management now owns 760 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $269,000 after acquiring an additional 60 shares in the last quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $3,871,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. FSA Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $57,000. Kestra Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth $2,565,000. Finally, Benjamin Edwards Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 509.8% during the third quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 152,051 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $53,812,000 after buying an additional 127,117 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Wall Street Analyst Weigh In
A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Guggenheim decreased their target price on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. 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 research note on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Piper Sandler cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $378.23.
Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on ACN
Accenture Price Performance
Shares of ACN traded down $14.73 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $301.60. 2,565,242 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,936,720. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The stock has a market cap of $188.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a 50 day moving average of $352.46 and a 200-day moving average of $355.28.
Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates 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 analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Accenture Announces Dividend
The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.96%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.89%.
Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture
In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.
About Accenture
(
Free Report)
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.
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