1,831 Shares in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Purchased by Patrick M Sweeney & Associates Inc.

Patrick M Sweeney & Associates Inc. acquired a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund acquired 1,831 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $643,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 2.3% during the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 4,284,770 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,315,832,000 after purchasing an additional 96,414 shares during the last quarter. Redwood Investments LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 8.3% in the 4th quarter. Redwood Investments LLC now owns 20,227 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $7,098,000 after buying an additional 1,542 shares during the last quarter. Chicago Capital LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 284.7% during the 4th quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 12,677 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,449,000 after acquiring an additional 9,382 shares in the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 33,484.1% in the fourth quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 567,572 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $199,167,000 after acquiring an additional 565,882 shares in the last quarter. Finally, VELA Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.3% during the third quarter. VELA Investment Management LLC now owns 3,681 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,130,000 after purchasing an additional 153 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 in the company, valued at $4,208,606.78. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Accenture news, CEO Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $315.91, for a total transaction of $1,974,437.50. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 161,581 shares in the company, valued at approximately $51,045,053.71. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, April 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total transaction 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 28,083 shares of company stock valued at $8,959,325. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have commented on ACN. TD Cowen dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $350.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, April 27th. Mizuho reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $398.00 price target (down from $426.00) on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. UBS Group boosted their target price on Accenture from $365.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. Finally, BNP Paribas raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $440.00 price target for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.00.

Accenture Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE ACN traded up $1.33 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $311.99. 2,283,894 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,498,874. The firm has a market capitalization of $209.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.40, a P/E/G ratio of 2.88 and a beta of 1.21. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $340.17 and a 200-day moving average price of $342.35. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $261.68 and a 1 year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.11. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. The company had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $15.85 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.69 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 11th will be paid a $1.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 10th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.65%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 46.78%.

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.