Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) COO Sells $902,725.00 in Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $361.09, for a total transaction of $902,725.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 19,737 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,126,833.33. The trade was a 11.24 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link.

Accenture Trading Up 2.9 %

Shares of Accenture stock traded up $10.58 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $372.99. The stock had a trading volume of 3,855,044 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,727,837. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $357.37 and a two-hundred day moving average of $348.01. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a market cap of $233.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.27 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.59%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.8% in 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 acquiring 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 Accenture by 378.9% in the third 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 valued at $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of 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. Swedbank AB raised its holdings in Accenture by 47.5% during the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,324,029,000 after purchasing an additional 1,212,011 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 44.7% during the second quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $822,238,000 after purchasing an additional 837,677 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group decreased 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. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. 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 note on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.74.

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.