D Orazio & Associates Inc. Increases Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

D Orazio & Associates Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.7% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 4,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 80 shares during the period. D Orazio & Associates Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,672,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter worth about $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% in the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after acquiring an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $35,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the firm’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 sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on ACN. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Piper Sandler upped 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. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $386.04 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $361.83 and its 200-day moving average price is $351.65. The company has a market cap of $241.58 billion, a PE ratio of 32.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company 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 $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

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.