Independent Advisor Alliance Has $9.98 Million Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Independent Advisor Alliance lowered its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 8.4% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 28,227 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 2,576 shares during the quarter. Independent Advisor Alliance’s holdings in Accenture were worth $9,978,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Davis R M Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 6.3% during the third quarter. Davis R M Inc. now owns 144,667 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $51,137,000 after acquiring an additional 8,634 shares during the period. Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC increased its position in Accenture by 1.4% during the third quarter. Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC now owns 262,276 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $92,709,000 after acquiring an additional 3,735 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 14.5% during the third quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 78,465 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $27,736,000 after acquiring an additional 9,911 shares during the period. Marco Investment Management LLC increased its position in Accenture by 1.3% during the third quarter. Marco Investment Management LLC now owns 10,120 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,577,000 after acquiring an additional 125 shares during the period. Finally, Hartford Funds Management Co LLC increased its position in Accenture by 19.8% during the third quarter. Hartford Funds Management Co LLC now owns 1,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $476,000 after acquiring an additional 223 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of a number of research reports. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. TD Cowen raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $329.00 to $395.00 in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, Guggenheim boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $368.23.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,412,909.16. This represents a 40.03 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. This 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 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Trading Down 0.7 %

Accenture stock opened at $358.66 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $224.22 billion, a PE ratio of 31.38, a PEG ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.25. The company’s 50-day moving average is $356.42 and its two-hundred day moving average is $329.23. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.71 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.65%. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

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

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.