Brady Martz Wealth Solutions LLC Purchases New Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Brady Martz Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 1,601 shares of the information technology services provider's stock, valued at approximately $559,000.

Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth about $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 607.1% during the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $39,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have issued reports on ACN. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a "market perform" rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a "peer perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. TD Cowen raised Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and increased their price objective for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $385.04.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN traded up $1.77 during trading hours on Monday, reaching $352.33. The stock had a trading volume of 4,061,199 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,320,392. The company has a market cap of $220.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.56, a PEG ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The business's fifty day moving average is $357.59 and its two-hundred day moving average is $345.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its board has initiated a share buyback 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 purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company's leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 17,125 shares of company stock valued at $6,184,820 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.