Applied Finance Capital Management LLC Sells 289 Shares of Accenture PLC $ACN

Applied Finance Capital Management LLC lessened its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 2.9% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 9,568 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 289 shares during the period. Applied Finance Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,860,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Kelly Lawrence W & Associates Inc. CA purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the first quarter worth $31,000. Inlight Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the 1st quarter worth about $32,000. RMG Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 2nd quarter valued at about $33,000. WPG Advisers LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the first quarter worth about $42,000. Finally, Cheviot Value Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the first quarter worth approximately $43,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 26th. Wolfe Research reduced their target price on Accenture from $290.00 to $285.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 23rd. Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Wall Street Zen cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, October 11th. Finally, Hsbc Global Res raised Accenture to a “moderate sell” rating in a research report on Monday, July 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $300.22.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN stock opened at $233.79 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.46. Accenture PLC has a 1 year low of $229.40 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $146.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.28. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $246.79 and its 200-day moving average price is $279.67.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.98 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $17.60 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.Accenture’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.66 earnings per share. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Investors of record on Friday, October 10th will be issued a $1.63 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. This represents a $6.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.8%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 53.66%.

Accenture 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.