US Bancorp DE Raises Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

US Bancorp DE raised its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.8% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,174,164 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 20,771 shares during the quarter. US Bancorp DE’s holdings in Accenture were worth $412,029,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Chilton Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 180.0% in the 4th quarter. Chilton Capital Management LLC now owns 70 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the period. DiNuzzo Private Wealth Inc. acquired a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $27,000. Halpern Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $31,000. Laffer Tengler Investments Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 142.9% during the 4th quarter. Laffer Tengler Investments Inc. now owns 102 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after purchasing an additional 60 shares during the period. Finally, Private Wealth Management Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $43,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on ACN. Redburn Atlantic upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $410.00 to $445.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 19th. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 18th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $375.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. TD Cowen decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $350.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Finally, Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $379.00 to $419.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $381.67.

Accenture Stock Down 0.5 %

Shares of ACN stock traded down $1.51 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $305.60. 1,104,870 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,497,509. The firm has a market cap of $204.98 billion, a PE ratio of 27.79, a PEG ratio of 3.30 and a beta of 1.21. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $284.90 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $324.25 and a 200 day moving average of $342.74.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $15.85 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 10.89% and a return on equity of 28.30%. The company’s revenue was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.69 EPS. Analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 11th were given a $1.29 dividend. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 46.78%.

Insider Activity

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total transaction of $2,657,040.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,877 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,937,488.01. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In other Accenture news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, March 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,937,488.01. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 4,500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, April 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.00, for a total transaction of $1,422,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 42,781 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $13,518,796. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 28,083 shares of company stock worth $8,959,325. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by 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.