Melissa A. Burgum Sells 232 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $386.71 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $361.34 and its 200-day moving average price is $351.40. 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 $242.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data 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 net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $3.27 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of a number of research reports. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth $666,495,000. Swedbank AB grew its holdings in Accenture by 47.5% in the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,324,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,212,011 shares during the last quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 51,837.3% in the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 860,601 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $302,751,000 after acquiring an additional 858,944 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its holdings in Accenture by 2,666.5% in the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 715,219 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $251,607,000 after acquiring an additional 689,366 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.