Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by Geode Capital Management LLC

Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.0% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 136,665 shares during the quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC owned about 2.16% of Accenture worth $4,750,021,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

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

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $312.78 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a 50-day moving average of $354.17 and a two-hundred day moving average of $355.81. 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 market cap of $195.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.24, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.89%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Mizuho lowered their price objective on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Piper Sandler dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 20th. Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.23.

About Accenture

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.