Potomac Fund Management Inc. ADV Purchases New Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Potomac Fund Management Inc. ADV purchased a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 4,937 shares of the information technology services provider's stock, valued at approximately $1,737,000. Accenture comprises 1.6% of Potomac Fund Management Inc. ADV's portfolio, making the stock its 10th biggest position.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew 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 during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth approximately $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of several analyst reports. Guggenheim lowered their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Mizuho decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $390.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Up 0.9 %

NYSE ACN traded up $2.78 on Wednesday, hitting $316.36. 4,118,899 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,937,139. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $352.46 and a 200-day moving average price of $355.28. The company has a market cap of $198.15 billion, a PE ratio of 26.54, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

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. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture's revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.87%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

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.