Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Position Lifted by YHB Investment Advisors Inc.

YHB Investment Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 10.2% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 9,363 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 863 shares during the period. YHB Investment Advisors Inc.'s holdings in Accenture were worth $3,294,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $9,685,648,000 after buying an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $1,941,219,000 after purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after buying an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 44.7% during the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $822,238,000 after buying an additional 837,677 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 16.6% in the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $901,967,000 after acquiring an additional 363,401 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have weighed in on the stock. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a "peer perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Robert W. Baird reissued a "neutral" rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an "outperform" rating to a "neutral" rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $387.22.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 16,446 shares of company stock worth $5,852,848. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock traded up $4.40 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $385.15. 1,645,609 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,692,577. The company has a market capitalization of $241.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.31, a P/E/G ratio of 3.33 and a beta of 1.24. 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 firm's 50-day simple moving average is $359.04 and its 200-day simple moving average is $349.42. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.54%. Accenture's payout ratio is 49.66%.

Accenture 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.