Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC Acquires 257 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.7% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 35,575 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 257 shares during the period. Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $12,515,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC grew its stake 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 valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth approximately $35,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. BNP Paribas downgraded Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $391.98 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The company has a market cap of $245.30 billion, a PE ratio of 32.88, a PEG ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $392.45. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $360.05 and its 200-day simple moving average is $350.64.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released 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 analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.51%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total transaction of $1,723,205.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 20,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,446,422.28. This trade represents a 18.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 13,255 shares of company stock valued at $4,756,101 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.