Portfolio Design Labs LLC Sells 1,548 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Portfolio Design Labs LLC trimmed its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 16.4% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 7,887 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,548 shares during the period. Portfolio Design Labs LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,788,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of ACN. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the second quarter valued at approximately $26,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 108.0% in the first quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after acquiring an additional 54 shares during the period. Finally, Tsfg LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 31.1% in the second quarter. Tsfg LLC now owns 135 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $41,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the firm’s 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 transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. This trade represents a 4.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 in the last quarter. 0.07% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $353.85 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $221.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.96, a PEG ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.25. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $355.89 and a 200-day simple moving average of $328.19. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.71 earnings per share. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.67%. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

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.