Truepoint Inc. Acquires 1,036 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Truepoint Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 30.6% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,424 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,036 shares during the quarter. Truepoint Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,556,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of ACN. State Street Corp raised 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 valued at $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its stake 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,746,455,000 after purchasing an additional 140,726 shares during the period. Amundi boosted its stake in Accenture by 27.9% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,353,909,000 after buying an additional 826,038 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 47.5% in the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after buying an additional 1,212,011 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 14th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $384.45.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $300.86 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 firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $360.05 and a 200 day simple moving average of $357.39. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $188.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.24, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.77 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.97%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.