355 Shares in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Acquired by Menard Financial Group LLC

Menard Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 355 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $125,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 36.2% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,486,000 after purchasing an additional 4,905 shares in the last quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 10.7% in the fourth quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 558 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $196,000 after purchasing an additional 54 shares during the last quarter. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. purchased a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $42,000. Flagship Harbor Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 23.0% during the fourth quarter. Flagship Harbor Advisors LLC now owns 4,107 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,445,000 after buying an additional 767 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 6.7% in the 4th quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management now owns 9,187 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,232,000 after acquiring an additional 578 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $309.51 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $193.86 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.97, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $275.01 and a 1-year high of $398.35. 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 has a 50-day moving average of $301.76 and a two-hundred day moving average of $339.65.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.77 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.91%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.89%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on ACN. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Guggenheim reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 target price (up previously from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a research note on Thursday, May 22nd. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $382.14.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 15,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,161,650. The trade was a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total transaction of $643,242.92. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 9,965 shares in the company, valued at $2,806,442.95. The trade was a 18.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.