Mcrae Capital Management Inc. Decreases Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Mcrae Capital Management Inc. lowered its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.6% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 26,500 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 150 shares during the quarter. Accenture accounts for about 1.8% of Mcrae Capital Management Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 25th biggest holding. Mcrae Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $9,323,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 252,437 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $89,913,000 after buying an additional 3,351 shares during the period. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 3.2% during the 4th quarter. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC now owns 1,685 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $593,000 after acquiring an additional 52 shares during the period. Investment Partners Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 5.2% during the 4th quarter. Investment Partners Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,719 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $605,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Avestar Capital LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 17.3% in the fourth quarter. Avestar Capital LLC now owns 3,909 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,375,000 after purchasing an additional 576 shares during the period. Finally, AFT Forsyth & Company Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 8.8% during the fourth quarter. AFT Forsyth & Company Inc. now owns 932 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $328,000 after purchasing an additional 75 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price target on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.22.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the 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 completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were 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 owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $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 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $389.71 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $364.15 and its 200-day simple moving average is $353.43. The stock has a market cap of $243.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.69, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.52%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 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.