Oldfather Financial Services LLC Takes Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Oldfather Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 645 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $228,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Catalyst Financial Partners LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 10.8% during the third quarter. Catalyst Financial Partners LLC now owns 2,439 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $862,000 after buying an additional 237 shares in the last quarter. Tevis Investment Management boosted its holdings in Accenture by 2.8% during the third quarter. Tevis Investment Management now owns 2,283 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $807,000 after buying an additional 62 shares in the last quarter. Goldstone Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter worth approximately $1,103,000. Financial Advocates Investment Management boosted its holdings in Accenture by 5.0% during the third quarter. Financial Advocates Investment Management now owns 5,182 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,832,000 after buying an additional 246 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cornerstone Wealth Group LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 662.5% during the third quarter. Cornerstone Wealth Group LLC now owns 17,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,164,000 after buying an additional 15,151 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 33,107 shares of company stock valued at $12,275,914 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3 %

Accenture stock traded down $1.17 on Thursday, hitting $345.40. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 169,800 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,715,568. The firm has a market cap of $215.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.47 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $351.80 and a 200-day moving average price of $323.68. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.71 EPS. Analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.79 EPS for the current year.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.71%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Piper Sandler upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price target for the company from $329.00 to $395.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 26th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $368.23.

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.