Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock Holdings Increased by HB Wealth Management LLC

HB Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.6% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 124,831 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 2,014 shares during the quarter. Accenture makes up about 0.4% of HB Wealth Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 27th biggest holding. HB Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $43,915,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Edgestream Partners L.P. acquired a new position in Accenture in the second quarter valued at approximately $1,524,000. XTX Topco Ltd acquired a new position in Accenture in the second quarter valued at approximately $1,999,000. Intech Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 13.8% in the second quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 41,701 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,652,000 after acquiring an additional 5,045 shares during the period. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 4.6% in the second quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 18,957 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $5,752,000 after acquiring an additional 840 shares during the period. Finally, Clifford Group LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 9.0% in the second quarter. Clifford Group LLC now owns 2,286 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $694,000 after acquiring an additional 189 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have commented on the company. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler Companies reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 20th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $385.04.

Accenture Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of Accenture stock traded up $1.77 on Friday, hitting $352.33. 4,061,199 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,320,392. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $357.65 and a 200 day moving average price of $345.02. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $220.49 billion, a PE ratio of 29.56, a PEG ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 26,125 shares of company stock worth $9,570,260. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.