Guardian Partners Inc. Purchases New Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Guardian Partners Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 1,660 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $594,000.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its stake 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 worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth 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. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth about $34,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total transaction of $340,645.67. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,484 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 in the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

ACN stock opened at $305.17 on Monday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $359.16 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $357.33. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Stifel Nicolaus cut their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their target price on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Piper Sandler cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $380.05.

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.