Julie Spellman Sweet Sells 8,793 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink.

Julie Spellman Sweet also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Friday, January 17th, Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN traded down $11.54 on Thursday, reaching $386.71. 2,827,618 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,817,746. The firm has a market capitalization of $242.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.44, a PEG 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. The business’s 50-day moving average is $361.34 and its two-hundred day moving average is $351.40. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business 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 earned $3.27 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth 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 during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.22.

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.