Copley Financial Group Inc. Purchases Shares of 1,339 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor bought 1,339 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $473,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,311,102,000 after buying an additional 131,544 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in Accenture by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,786,256,000 after buying an additional 80,514 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several recent research reports. Piper Sandler Companies reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. Guggenheim raised their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Susquehanna boosted their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $373.32.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Down 0.5 %

ACN stock traded down $1.81 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $358.37. 108,984 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,673,358. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $360.61 and its 200-day moving average price is $334.25. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $224.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.52, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The company 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 firm’s revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.71 EPS. Analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a share buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

About Accenture

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.