Potomac Fund Management Inc. ADV Acquires New Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Potomac Fund Management Inc. ADV bought a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 4,937 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,737,000. Accenture makes up about 1.6% of Potomac Fund Management Inc. ADV’s portfolio, making the stock its 10th biggest position.

Several other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $21,246,236,000 after purchasing an additional 392,183 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,750,021,000 after acquiring an additional 136,665 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its stake in Accenture by 22.8% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,283,225,000 after acquiring an additional 2,260,740 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $2,351,683,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Trading Up 2.8 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $312.78 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The company has a market cap of $195.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $354.17 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $355.81.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.77 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.89%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.89%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Guggenheim lowered their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 24th. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.23.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm’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 value of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’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 value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % 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 worth $8,181,753 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.