New York State Common Retirement Fund Decreases Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

New York State Common Retirement Fund cut its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.1% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 886,441 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 100,095 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund owned 0.14% of Accenture worth $313,339,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the second quarter worth about $26,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $28,000. CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. acquired a new position in Accenture during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of 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 worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Creekmur Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 108.0% during the first quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $36,000 after buying an additional 54 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have commented on ACN shares. UBS Group lifted their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday. Guggenheim raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, Susquehanna boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN traded up $1.85 on Friday, hitting $346.67. The company had a trading volume of 192,552 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,717,385. The company has a market capitalization of $216.72 billion, a PE ratio of 30.18, a PEG ratio of 3.03 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 company’s fifty day moving average price is $352.09 and its 200-day moving average price is $323.82.

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, 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 analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.71 EPS. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed 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. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.71%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,102,817. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 33,107 shares of company stock worth $12,275,914. Corporate insiders own 0.07% 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.