Waddell & Associates LLC Buys 144 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Waddell & Associates LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 11.8% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 1,368 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 144 shares during the quarter. Waddell & Associates LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $484,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Nicolet Advisory Services LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 35.1% in the 3rd quarter. Nicolet Advisory Services LLC now owns 2,063 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $745,000 after buying an additional 536 shares during the last quarter. Leelyn Smith LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 3.4% in the third quarter. Leelyn Smith LLC now owns 12,917 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,566,000 after purchasing an additional 427 shares during the last quarter. Stonebrook Private Inc. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 11.3% during the 3rd quarter. Stonebrook Private Inc. now owns 1,070 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $378,000 after purchasing an additional 109 shares during the last quarter. Financial Council LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $226,000. Finally, Nwam LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $1,129,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $329.00 to $395.00 in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,102,817. This represents a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Trading Down 0.7 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $358.66 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The company has a 50-day moving average of $356.42 and a two-hundred day moving average of $328.98. The company has a market cap of $224.22 billion, a PE ratio of 31.38, a P/E/G ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.71 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.65%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

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.