Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by LPL Financial LLC

LPL Financial LLC increased its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 11.3% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 592,510 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 59,976 shares during the period. LPL Financial LLC owned about 0.09% of Accenture worth $208,449,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings 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 buying an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s 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 transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was 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 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Mizuho cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $380.05.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

NYSE ACN opened at $305.17 on Monday. 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 company’s 50 day simple moving average is $359.16 and its 200 day simple moving average is $357.33. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.60, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results 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 business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.77 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 49.66%.

Accenture Company 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.