Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Sees Significant Growth in Short Interest

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) saw a significant growth in short interest in January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 5,460,000 shares, a growth of 16.9% from the January 15th total of 4,670,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 2,600,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.1 days. Currently, 0.9% of the shares of the company are short sold.

Accenture Trading Down 0.4 %

NYSE:ACN traded down $1.55 on Monday, reaching $387.99. The stock had a trading volume of 2,022,701 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,705,305. Accenture has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $242.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.55, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $365.29 and its two-hundred day moving average is $354.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th were paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.53%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.22.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its holdings in 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 purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth about $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.