John G Ullman & Associates Inc. Buys Shares of 616 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

John G Ullman & Associates Inc. bought a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm bought 616 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $218,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the second quarter valued at about $26,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at $28,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in Accenture during the third quarter worth about $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 607.1% during the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the period. Finally, Creekmur Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 108.0% in the 1st quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after purchasing an additional 54 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have commented on ACN shares. Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Citigroup increased their target price on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Barclays increased their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Piper Sandler Companies restated a “neutral” rating and set a $329.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Up 0.9 %

Shares of ACN opened at $360.41 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $225.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.53, a P/E/G ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 1.25. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51. The business’s fifty day moving average is $356.24 and its 200 day moving average is $328.61.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.71 EPS. On average, analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current year.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated a share buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.64%. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 51.79%.

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.