CoreFirst Bank & Trust Invests $986,000 in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

CoreFirst Bank & Trust purchased a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 2,804 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $986,000.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $307.24 on Tuesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $358.32 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $357.10. The company has a market cap of $192.27 billion, a PE ratio of 25.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 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 plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. Accenture’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.93%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 48.89%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have recently commented on ACN. UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Baird R W raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Mizuho cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.91.

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.