REDW Wealth LLC Lowers Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

REDW Wealth LLC trimmed its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.7% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,050 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 75 shares during the period. REDW Wealth LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $371,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Pure Financial Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.7% during the third quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC now owns 1,931 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $683,000 after buying an additional 33 shares during the last quarter. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $204,000. Optas LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 19.3% during the third quarter. Optas LLC now owns 1,365 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $482,000 after acquiring an additional 221 shares in the last quarter. Princeton Global Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.4% during the third quarter. Princeton Global Asset Management LLC now owns 18,168 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,422,000 after acquiring an additional 424 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fullcircle Wealth LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.3% during the third quarter. Fullcircle Wealth LLC now owns 6,772 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,447,000 after acquiring an additional 154 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $345.67 on Friday. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $352.34 and its 200 day moving average price is $324.12. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $387.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $216.10 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.24, a P/E/G ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 1.25.

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.71%. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total transaction of $1,899,689.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 38,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,490,266.50. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other Accenture news, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total transaction of $1,899,689.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 38,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,490,266.50. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 5,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.24, for a total transaction of $1,866,200.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,593 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,566,411.32. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 33,107 shares of company stock valued at $12,275,914 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.