Wallace Advisory Group LLC Decreases Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Wallace Advisory Group LLC reduced its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACNFree Report) by 15.3% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 2,543 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 460 shares during the period. Wallace Advisory Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $899,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $39,000. Finally, Reston Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $51,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $349.14 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $218.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.55, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a 50-day moving average of $357.93 and a 200-day moving average of $344.63.

Accenture (NYSE:ACNGet Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.74 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated a stock buyback plan 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 purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are often an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently commented on ACN shares. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $385.04.

Get Our Latest Report on ACN

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total value of $1,899,689.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 38,825 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. This represents a 11.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About Accenture

(Free Report)

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.

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Institutional Ownership by Quarter for Accenture (NYSE:ACN)

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