CENTRAL TRUST Co Sells 160 Shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)

CENTRAL TRUST Co lowered its stake in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 1.5% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 10,337 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 160 shares during the quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co’s holdings in Accenture were worth $3,226,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $2,351,683,000. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 30,256.8% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,421,519 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,067,651,000 after acquiring an additional 3,410,248 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in Accenture by 22.8% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,283,225,000 after acquiring an additional 2,260,740 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $666,495,000. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors boosted its holdings in Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,325,526,000 after acquiring an additional 1,770,024 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Wall Street Zen cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on Accenture from $372.00 to $340.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, June 12th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada cut their target price on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 21st. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.00.

Accenture Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $312.03 on Wednesday. Accenture PLC has a 1 year low of $275.01 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $195.43 billion, a PE ratio of 25.77, a P/E/G ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.33. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $306.40 and a 200-day moving average price of $334.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.48 and a quick ratio of 1.48.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.49% and a net margin of 11.43%. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. This trade represents a 3.05% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 9,965 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366. 0.02% 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.