Julie Spellman Sweet Sells 8,793 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

Julie Spellman Sweet also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Friday, January 17th, Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $386.04 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $241.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $361.83 and its 200 day moving average price is $351.65.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) 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. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on ACN shares. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. BNP Paribas lowered 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. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA raised its position in shares of Accenture by 6.5% during the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,883 shares during the last quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 78.6% in the third quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,047,000 after acquiring an additional 5,038 shares during the last quarter. MQS Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 70.6% in the 3rd quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,581,000 after purchasing an additional 14,724 shares during the last quarter. Finally, M&G PLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 34.1% during the 3rd quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $103,361,000 after purchasing an additional 74,438 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.