Tanaka Capital Management Inc. Has $516,000 Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Tanaka Capital Management Inc. cut its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.6% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,459 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 55 shares during the period. Accenture accounts for approximately 1.2% of Tanaka Capital Management Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 21st biggest holding. Tanaka Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $516,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of ACN. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after buying an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,311,102,000 after acquiring an additional 131,544 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in Accenture by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,786,256,000 after acquiring an additional 80,514 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 378.9% during the third 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 1.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after purchasing an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Susquehanna lifted their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. BNP Paribas downgraded Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target for the company. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Piper Sandler upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $329.00 to $395.00 in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, Mizuho raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $372.09.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $362.70 on Monday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $360.14 and a 200 day moving average price of $333.04. The stock has a market capitalization of $226.75 billion, a PE ratio of 31.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.22 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.76 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

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

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. The trade was a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.