Sandy Cove Advisors LLC Buys 96 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Sandy Cove Advisors LLC raised its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 11.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 911 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 96 shares during the period. Sandy Cove Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $320,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp grew its position in 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 during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.4% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,786,256,000 after purchasing an additional 80,514 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC increased its position in Accenture by 44.7% in the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $822,238,000 after acquiring an additional 837,677 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $352.33 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $357.59 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $345.36. The stock has a market cap of $220.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.56, a P/E/G ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.68%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. The trade was a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 26,125 shares of company stock worth $9,570,260 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Piper Sandler increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. UBS Group lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. TD Cowen upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $385.04.

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.