Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CFO Sells $1,422,000.00 in Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 4,500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred 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 in the company, valued at approximately $13,518,796. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink.

Accenture Stock Up 0.2 %

Shares of ACN traded up $0.67 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $314.61. The company had a trading volume of 1,680,672 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,352,313. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $261.68 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The stock has a market cap of $211.02 billion, a PE ratio of 28.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.97 and a beta of 1.19. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $358.39 and a 200-day simple moving average of $342.14.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued 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. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. The business had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $15.85 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.69 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 11th will be issued a dividend of $1.29 per share. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.64%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 46.78%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.1% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,083,383 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $20,732,950,000 after purchasing an additional 649,358 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Accenture by 2.7% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 26,453,884 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $7,560,765,000 after acquiring an additional 704,657 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley boosted its holdings in Accenture by 14.9% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 16,642,841 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,440,976,000 after acquiring an additional 2,163,582 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 4.4% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 13,316,028 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,089,485,000 after acquiring an additional 565,505 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in Accenture by 7.0% during the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 11,034,666 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,388,856,000 after acquiring an additional 720,647 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on ACN. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Bank of America lifted 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. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 18th. Mizuho reissued a “buy” rating and set a $398.00 target price (down previously from $426.00) on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.00.

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.