Short Interest in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Declines By 7.1%

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) was the target of a significant decrease in short interest in the month of December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 5,900,000 shares, a decrease of 7.1% from the November 30th total of 6,350,000 shares. Approximately 1.0% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 2,540,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.3 days.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. Citigroup lifted their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Piper Sandler increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.23.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The stock was 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 directly owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. This trade represents a 4.47 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in 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 buying an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its position 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 raised its stake 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 grew its stake in 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. increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during 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. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Accenture Trading Down 0.2 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN traded down $0.70 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $351.79. 1,747,457 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,686,943. The stock has a market cap of $219.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.78, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $358.42 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $341.22.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that Accenture will post 12.74 EPS for the current year.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

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.