Granite Harbor Advisors Inc. Invests $201,000 in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Granite Harbor Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor purchased 570 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $201,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture in the third quarter valued at $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth about $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% in the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares during the period. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $35,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $380.78 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The firm has a market cap of $238.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.94, a P/E/G ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $358.63 and its 200-day moving average price is $349.20. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.55%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently issued reports on ACN. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.74.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 16,446 shares of company stock valued at $5,852,848 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.