Short Interest in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Declines By 7.7%

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) was the recipient of a significant decline in short interest in the month of June. As of June 30th, there was short interest totalling 7,470,000 shares, a decline of 7.7% from the June 15th total of 8,090,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 3,470,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.2 days. Currently, 1.2% of the shares of the stock are sold short.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, April 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total value of $1,536,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 13,699 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,208,606.78. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 3,776 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $309.05, for a total value of $1,166,972.80. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,819 shares in the company, valued at $3,652,661.95. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, April 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total transaction of $1,536,100.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 13,699 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,208,606.78. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 17,609 shares of company stock worth $5,472,981. 0.07% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Atwater Malick LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 2.5% in the second quarter. Atwater Malick LLC now owns 37,773 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $11,461,000 after acquiring an additional 924 shares during the period. Mcdonald Partners LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 0.5% during the 2nd quarter. Mcdonald Partners LLC now owns 10,501 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,186,000 after acquiring an additional 57 shares during the period. ERn Financial LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.3% in the 2nd quarter. ERn Financial LLC now owns 3,275 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $994,000 after purchasing an additional 222 shares during the period. DeDora Capital Inc. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 3.3% during the 2nd quarter. DeDora Capital Inc. now owns 3,843 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,166,000 after purchasing an additional 124 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Epic Trust Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the second quarter worth approximately $218,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Wedbush lowered their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $350.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Susquehanna reduced their target price on Accenture from $360.00 to $350.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 21st. Barclays dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $350.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 17th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $395.00 to $340.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, April 27th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $351.82.

Accenture Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of ACN opened at $328.40 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $205.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.82, a PEG ratio of 3.63 and a beta of 1.23. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $299.91 and its 200 day simple moving average is $332.37. Accenture has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.15 by ($0.02). The business had revenue of $16.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.55 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $3.19 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture will post 11.95 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 11th will be issued a dividend of $1.29 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 11th. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.57%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 47.25%.

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.