Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. Sells 114 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. lessened its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.1% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,013 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 114 shares during the period. Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $316,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Visionary Wealth Advisors increased its position in shares of Accenture by 3.5% during the 4th quarter. Visionary Wealth Advisors now owns 778 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $274,000 after purchasing an additional 26 shares during the last quarter. Vivaldi Capital Management LP lifted its stake in Accenture by 3.6% in the fourth quarter. Vivaldi Capital Management LP now owns 782 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $292,000 after acquiring an additional 27 shares during the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.6% in the 4th quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $230,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the period. Finally, Nemes Rush Group LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 7.5% in the 4th quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC now owns 418 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $147,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have issued reports on ACN. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 26th. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $382.15.

Accenture Trading Down 2.1%

Shares of ACN stock opened at $311.37 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a market cap of $195.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.33. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $305.50 and a 200 day simple moving average of $335.58. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $275.01 and a 1 year high of $398.35.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.90%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 17,237 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. This represents a 17.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 9,965 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 over the last three months. 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.