Martel Wealth Advisors Inc Takes $704,000 Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Martel Wealth Advisors Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor acquired 2,000 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $704,000.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 607.1% during the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on ACN. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Guggenheim upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Barclays lifted their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $385.04.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 16,452 shares of company stock valued at $5,934,343. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $352.33 on Tuesday. The company 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. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $357.59 and its 200-day moving average price is $345.93. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its 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. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

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

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

About Accenture

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.