Julie Spellman Sweet Sells 2,497 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated 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 owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink.

Julie Spellman Sweet also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, October 28th, Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of Accenture stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total value of $2,945,801.52.

Accenture Stock Up 0.3 %

NYSE ACN traded up $1.04 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $353.63. 394,309 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,492,124. 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 company has a market cap of $221.30 billion, a PE ratio of 29.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.24. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $357.49 and its 200-day simple moving average is $346.26. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced 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. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.67%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Clearbridge Investments LLC grew its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 837,677 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 2,666.5% during the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 715,219 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $251,607,000 after acquiring an additional 689,366 shares during the period. Holocene Advisors LP acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $204,895,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 37,788.5% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $180,401,000 after buying an additional 509,011 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Guggenheim upped their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. UBS Group upped their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $385.04.

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.