Harbor Investment Advisory LLC Lowers Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Harbor Investment Advisory LLC decreased its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.3% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,447 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 58 shares during the period. Harbor Investment Advisory LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,564,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of ACN. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Accenture by 1.8% in 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 buying an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.4% in 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 acquiring an additional 80,514 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% in 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 purchasing an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 44.7% during 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 buying an additional 837,677 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $369.97, for a total value of $1,757,357.50. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 22,976 shares in the company, valued at $8,500,430.72. This trade represents a 17.13 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 16,452 shares of company stock worth $5,934,343 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Up 0.5 %

ACN stock opened at $352.33 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $220.49 billion, a PE ratio of 29.56, a P/E/G ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $357.59 and its 200 day moving average is $345.93.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price 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. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Accenture 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.