Pinnacle Associates Ltd. Grows Stock Position in Accenture PLC $ACN

Pinnacle Associates Ltd. raised its holdings in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 2.2% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 35,101 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 769 shares during the quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $10,491,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in Accenture by 63.9% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,793,889,000 after buying an additional 3,490,569 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Accenture by 5.7% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,814,234 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $19,912,594,000 after buying an additional 3,419,577 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 2,782.1% in the first quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,445,281 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $450,985,000 after purchasing an additional 1,395,135 shares during the last quarter. McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the second quarter worth about $308,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 23.5% in the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,823,228 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $880,960,000 after purchasing an additional 537,223 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Up 0.5%

Accenture stock opened at $250.44 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $164.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.61, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.28. Accenture PLC has a 52 week low of $229.40 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $246.87 and its 200 day moving average price is $276.12. The company has a quick ratio of 1.42, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.98 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $17.60 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.66 earnings per share. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be issued a $1.63 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.6%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 53.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Manish Sharma sold 6,902 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $250.01, for a total value of $1,725,569.02. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 1,860 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $465,018.60. This trade represents a 78.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $253.40, for a total value of $2,280,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 14,516 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,678,354.40. The trade was a 38.27% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 27,402 shares of company stock valued at $6,875,974. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Accenture in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Wall Street Zen cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, October 11th. Hsbc Global Res upgraded Accenture to a “moderate sell” rating in a research note on Monday, July 28th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on Accenture from $325.00 to $271.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 9th. Finally, Evercore ISI set a $280.00 price objective on Accenture in a research note on Thursday, September 25th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $294.25.

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.