Orrstown Financial Services Inc. Increases Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Orrstown Financial Services Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 58.1% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 1,398 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 514 shares during the quarter. Orrstown Financial Services Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $492,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Field & Main Bank boosted its holdings in Accenture by 5.7% during the fourth quarter. Field & Main Bank now owns 5,520 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,942,000 after buying an additional 297 shares in the last quarter. Allen Capital Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 146.5% during the fourth quarter. Allen Capital Group LLC now owns 2,105 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $741,000 after acquiring an additional 1,251 shares during the last quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 2.6% in the fourth quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,484 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $522,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Forsta AP Fonden raised its stake in Accenture by 0.7% in the 4th quarter. Forsta AP Fonden now owns 163,829 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $57,633,000 after purchasing an additional 1,100 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. boosted its stake in Accenture by 6.8% during the 4th quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 473,408 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $166,540,000 after purchasing an additional 30,154 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction 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 approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 16,446 shares of company stock worth $5,852,848 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $383.74.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock traded down $2.57 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $375.82. 307,316 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,661,639. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $358.27 and its 200 day simple moving average is $349.02. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market cap of $235.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

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 issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

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.