Institute for Wealth Management LLC. Reduces Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Institute for Wealth Management LLC. decreased its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.3% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 2,674 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 34 shares during the period. Institute for Wealth Management LLC.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $941,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Anchor Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.1% during the 2nd quarter. Anchor Investment Management LLC now owns 5,661 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,718,000 after buying an additional 61 shares in the last quarter. Mattson Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at $1,043,000. Trust Co. of Toledo NA OH raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 37.7% in the 3rd quarter. Trust Co. of Toledo NA OH now owns 3,800 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,343,000 after purchasing an additional 1,040 shares in the last quarter. Czech National Bank raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 6.5% in the 3rd quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 127,601 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $45,104,000 after purchasing an additional 7,791 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Unique Wealth LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 12.9% in the 3rd quarter. Unique Wealth LLC now owns 7,490 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,648,000 after purchasing an additional 857 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Up 1.1 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $384.88 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $240.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.29, a PEG ratio of 3.33 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $359.04 and its 200-day simple moving average is $349.42. 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 fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed 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 1.54%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Piper Sandler increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. 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. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research 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 on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.22.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the firm’s 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 $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, 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 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. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 16,446 shares of company stock worth $5,852,848 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.