Cornerstone Wealth Group LLC Increases Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Cornerstone Wealth Group LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 5.3% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 18,369 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 931 shares during the quarter. Cornerstone Wealth Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,462,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 78.6% during the third quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,047,000 after purchasing an additional 5,038 shares in the last quarter. MQS Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings 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 worth $12,581,000 after acquiring an additional 14,724 shares in the last quarter. M&G PLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 34.1% during the third quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $103,361,000 after purchasing an additional 74,438 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Radnor Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 21.6% in the third quarter. Radnor Capital Management LLC now owns 22,131 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $7,823,000 after purchasing an additional 3,930 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently weighed in on ACN. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. TD Cowen upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. UBS Group boosted their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, 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 report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $383.74.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $362.65 on Monday. 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 stock’s fifty day moving average is $357.37 and its 200 day moving average is $347.64. The firm has a market capitalization of $226.94 billion, a PE ratio of 30.42, a PEG ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.27 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.63%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 9,196 shares of company stock valued at $3,226,918 in the last 90 days. 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.