Opes Wealth Management LLC Invests $205,000 in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Opes Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 584 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $205,000.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in 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 acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Swedbank AB raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 47.5% in the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,212,011 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in shares of 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 valued at $251,607,000 after acquiring an additional 689,366 shares during the period. Holocene Advisors LP purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $204,895,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 37,788.5% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $180,401,000 after acquiring an additional 509,011 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Wolfe Research upgraded 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. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available 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 transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, 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. In the last quarter, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Down 0.4 %

ACN stock opened at $387.99 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $365.29 and a 200 day moving average price of $354.11. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $242.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced 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 company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.53%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

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.