Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by Blue Trust Inc.

Blue Trust Inc. lowered its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 9.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 23,492 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 2,425 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $8,264,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 2.0% in the third quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,447 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $511,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. BSW Wealth Partners increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.7% during the third quarter. BSW Wealth Partners now owns 4,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,441,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 5.7% during the fourth quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $182,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Slow Capital Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. Slow Capital Inc. now owns 9,067 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,205,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tradition Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,871,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were 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 in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $387.99 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $364.78 and its 200-day moving average price is $353.68. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $242.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.55, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. 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 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th were issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.53%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on ACN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

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.