Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. Invests $142,000 in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 405 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $142,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of ACN. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $1,850,765,000. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 101,214.0% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 4,040,402 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,078,141,000 after buying an additional 4,036,414 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley increased its stake in Accenture by 14.9% in 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 buying an additional 2,163,582 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in Accenture by 7.0% in 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 buying an additional 720,647 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp increased its stake in Accenture by 2.7% in 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 buying an additional 704,657 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several recent research reports. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $375.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Citigroup lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $430.00 to $400.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Redburn Atlantic boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $410.00 to $445.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 19th. Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $379.00 to $419.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, March 7th. Finally, BNP Paribas raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $440.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.00.

Accenture Stock Up 0.3 %

Shares of Accenture stock traded up $0.88 on Friday, hitting $316.88. 3,381,612 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,947,733. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $355.21 and its 200 day moving average is $341.83. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $261.68 and a 52-week high of $387.51. The stock has a market cap of $212.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.73, a PEG ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.19.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.11. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. The firm had revenue of $15.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $15.85 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.69 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.09 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 11th will be paid a dividend of $1.29 per share. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.63%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 46.78%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 3,010 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $371.80, for a total value of $1,119,118.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,193 shares in the company, valued at $3,417,957.40. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,333 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $371.83, for a total value of $1,611,139.39. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 34,795 shares in the company, valued at $12,937,824.85. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 3,010 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $371.80, for a total value of $1,119,118.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,193 shares in the company, valued at $3,417,957.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 35,500 shares of company stock worth $12,276,123 over the last ninety days. 0.07% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.