Point72 Hong Kong Ltd Invests $8.43 Million in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Point72 Hong Kong Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 23,964 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $8,430,000.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA increased its holdings in Accenture by 6.5% in the fourth quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,883 shares in the last quarter. Davidson Trust Co. increased its holdings in Accenture by 7.4% in the fourth quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $812,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its holdings in Accenture by 37.5% in the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,088,000 after purchasing an additional 843 shares in the last quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 127.1% in the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $817,000 after purchasing an additional 1,300 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 16.8% during 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 in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several recent research reports. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. UBS Group decreased their price objective on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, Mizuho decreased their price target on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $377.82.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $321.04 on Thursday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $303.05 and its 200 day simple moving average is $341.80. The stock has a market capitalization of $201.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $275.01 and a 52-week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. Research analysts forecast 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 will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.84%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the firm’s 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 9,965 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The shares were 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 directly owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. The trade was a 3.05% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.