Buckley Wealth Management LLC Sells 84 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Buckley Wealth Management LLC cut its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.7% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 2,999 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 84 shares during the quarter. Buckley Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,039,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 58,434,025 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $17,945,673,000 after buying an additional 184,541 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.0% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 11,034,666 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,388,856,000 after buying an additional 720,647 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 8,479,430 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,975,517,000 after buying an additional 159,696 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $2,061,490,000. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,466,684 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,556,676,000 after purchasing an additional 68,635 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Trading Down 0.1 %

ACN stock traded down $0.28 during trading on Friday, reaching $302.91. The stock had a trading volume of 1,361,835 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,809,585. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $300.69 and its two-hundred day moving average is $336.65. The firm has a market cap of $203.17 billion, a PE ratio of 27.76, a PEG ratio of 3.40 and a beta of 1.21.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.15 by ($0.02). Accenture had a net margin of 10.79% and a return on equity of 27.48%. The firm had revenue of $16.47 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.55 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.19 EPS. The firm’s revenue was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 11.95 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 11th will be given a $1.29 dividend. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 11th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 47.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, April 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total value of $1,536,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 13,699 shares in the company, valued at $4,208,606.78. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In related news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,333 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.12, for a total transaction of $1,369,747.96. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 30,702 shares in the company, valued at $9,705,516.24. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, April 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total value of $1,536,100.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 13,699 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,208,606.78. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 20,083 shares of company stock worth $6,302,285 over the last quarter. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently weighed in on ACN. Piper Sandler Companies reduced their price target on Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, June 17th. Piper Sandler reduced their price target on Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, June 17th. Wedbush reduced their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $350.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Citigroup cut their target price on Accenture from $430.00 to $400.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Finally, Mizuho cut their target price on Accenture from $398.00 to $350.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 18th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $352.74.

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.