Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD Lowers Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD reduced its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 12.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 5,463,052 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after selling 804,865 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD owned approximately 0.87% of Accenture worth $1,921,848,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture in the third quarter worth about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Accenture Stock Up 1.9 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $284.59 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $178.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.88, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The company's fifty day moving average price is $321.93 and its 200-day moving average price is $348.57. Accenture plc has a one year low of $275.01 and a one year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.77 earnings per share. The business's revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect 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. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture's payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $361.09, for a total value of $902,725.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 19,737 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $7,126,833.33. This trade represents a 11.24 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction of $47,641.10. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,364 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,512,111.60. This trade represents a 3.05 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,291 shares of company stock valued at $7,880,886 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the company. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a "hold" rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Mizuho lowered their price objective 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 cut their target price 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, Barclays lowered their price target on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 24th. Eight 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. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $377.82.

Accenture Company Profile

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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