Soltis Investment Advisors LLC Raises Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Soltis Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 121.3% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 17,177 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 9,414 shares during the period. Soltis Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,043,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth about $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 607.1% during the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the period. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $35,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on ACN. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $386.04 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $241.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 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. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $362.30 and a 200 day moving average price of $352.18. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced 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. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis 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 currently 49.66%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last ninety days. 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.