Warren Street Wealth Advisors LLC Lowers Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Warren Street Wealth Advisors LLC cut its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.3% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 2,282 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 54 shares during the quarter. Warren Street Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $712,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its position in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth about $30,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Park Square Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $31,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 15,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,161,650. This represents a 13.60% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 9,965 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,806,442.95. The trade was a 18.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Up 1.1%

Accenture stock opened at $316.41 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $275.01 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $198.18 billion, a PE ratio of 26.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.33. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $303.02 and its 200 day moving average price is $337.76.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.77 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th were paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.87%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 48.89%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Guggenheim dropped their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Wall Street Zen cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. Finally, Baird R W raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $382.14.

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.