HighPoint Advisor Group LLC Has $4.77 Million Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

HighPoint Advisor Group LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.4% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 12,268 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,151 shares during the period. HighPoint Advisor Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $4,769,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter worth approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $34,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. This represents a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 20th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 21st. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $304.32 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $190.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.53, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a 50 day moving average of $354.96 and a 200-day moving average of $356.07.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.77 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.95%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 48.89%.

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.