Praxis Investment Management Inc. Increases Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

Praxis Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 35.8% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 26,856 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 7,087 shares during the period. Praxis Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,623,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Kelly Lawrence W & Associates Inc. CA purchased a new position in Accenture during the first quarter valued at approximately $31,000. RMG Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at $33,000. Howard Hughes Medical Institute purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 2nd quarter valued at $40,000. WPG Advisers LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the first quarter valued at $42,000. Finally, Traub Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the second quarter worth about $45,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Manish Sharma sold 6,902 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $250.01, for a total transaction of $1,725,569.02. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 1,860 shares in the company, valued at $465,018.60. This represents a 78.77% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.57, for a total transaction of $2,246,130.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 23,516 shares in the company, valued at $5,868,888.12. The trade was a 27.68% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 33,319 shares of company stock valued at $8,335,225 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price target on Accenture from $235.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $302.00 to $290.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $325.00 to $271.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 9th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $315.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 16th. Finally, HSBC lowered their price target on Accenture from $240.00 to $215.00 in a research report on Friday, September 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $293.21.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $271.70 on Monday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $250.48 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $264.85. Accenture PLC has a twelve month low of $229.40 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $178.91 billion, a PE ratio of 22.36, a P/E/G ratio of 2.64 and a beta of 1.26. The company has a quick ratio of 1.42, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.98 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.66 EPS. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Research analysts expect that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 10th were issued a $1.63 dividend. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.4%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 53.66%.

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.