Mauro Macchi Sells 500 Shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $141,170.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,283 shares in the company, valued at $644,582.22. This represents a 17.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link.

Accenture Stock Down 1.3%

Accenture stock opened at $276.21 on Wednesday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $307.88 and a 200-day simple moving average of $326.01. The firm has a market capitalization of $173.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.99, a P/E/G ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a current ratio of 1.46. Accenture PLC has a one year low of $273.19 and a one year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. The business had revenue of $17.73 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.26 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 26.55%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.13 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, July 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.14%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 47.13%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Norges Bank bought a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $2,351,683,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in Accenture by 63.9% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,793,889,000 after buying an additional 3,490,569 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 5.7% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,814,234 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $19,912,594,000 after buying an additional 3,419,577 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its position in Accenture by 30,256.8% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,421,519 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,067,651,000 after buying an additional 3,410,248 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in Accenture by 22.8% in the 4th 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 during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently issued reports on ACN. UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $395.00 price target (up from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $349.00 to $353.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, June 16th. Royal Bank Of Canada dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 21st. Benchmark reissued a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, June 20th. Finally, Argus set a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, June 24th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $370.71.

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.