Joel Unruch Sells 4,750 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total transaction of $1,723,205.00. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 20,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,446,422.28. This trade represents a 18.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Accenture Trading Up 1.5 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $378.61 on Wednesday. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. 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 company has a market capitalization of $236.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.76, a PEG ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. The company’s fifty day moving average is $357.77 and its two-hundred day moving average is $348.54.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.56%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.74.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% during the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $35,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.