Sawyer & Company Inc Raises Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Sawyer & Company Inc raised its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.0% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 15,043 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 152 shares during the quarter. Accenture accounts for approximately 2.0% of Sawyer & Company Inc’s portfolio, making the stock its 14th largest holding. Sawyer & Company Inc’s holdings in Accenture were worth $5,292,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth about $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% during the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $39,000. Finally, Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $51,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on ACN shares. BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $385.04.

Accenture Trading Up 0.1 %

ACN stock opened at $349.45 on Thursday. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $357.98 and its two-hundred day moving average is $344.94. The company has a market capitalization of $218.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.27 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared 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. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on 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 sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,102,817. This trade represents a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 26,125 shares of company stock worth $9,570,260. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.