Arete Wealth Advisors LLC Has $662,000 Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Arete Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,882 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 131 shares during the quarter. Arete Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $662,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of ACN. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA raised its position in shares of Accenture by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $22,314,000 after buying an additional 3,883 shares in the last quarter. Davidson Trust Co. raised its position in Accenture by 7.4% during the fourth quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $812,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 126.8% in the 4th quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $14,090,000 after purchasing an additional 22,391 shares in the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 37.5% in the 4th quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,088,000 after purchasing an additional 843 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 127.1% during the 4th quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $817,000 after buying an additional 1,300 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Barclays dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 24th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. UBS Group lowered their price objective on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 26th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $285.04 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $178.53 billion, a PE ratio of 23.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $349.68 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $354.42. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.77 EPS. Analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.