Insider Selling: Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) General Counsel Sells 3,563 Shares of Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the transaction, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares in the company, valued at $4,857,041.86. This represents a 17.13 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Joel Unruch also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Friday, January 24th, Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of Accenture stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total transaction of $1,723,205.00.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN traded down $2.96 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $282.28. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,320,335 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,007,591. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock's 50 day simple moving average is $326.22 and its 200 day simple moving average is $349.73. The stock has a market capitalization of $176.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.68, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $275.01 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) 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 firm 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 company's revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.10%. Accenture's payout ratio is 48.89%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a "hold" rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 26th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Mizuho decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada decreased their target price on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $377.82.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% 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.