Eastern Bank Has $14.27 Million Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Eastern Bank lowered its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.7% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 40,549 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 3,395 shares during the period. Eastern Bank’s holdings in Accenture were worth $14,265,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 607.1% during the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $39,000. Finally, Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $51,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock traded up $0.02 on Monday, hitting $349.81. The company had a trading volume of 1,373,289 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,520,676. The stock has a market capitalization of $218.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.60, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $357.82 and a 200-day moving average of $344.30. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. UBS Group upped their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Guggenheim upped their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $385.04.

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.