Appleton Partners Inc. MA Has $1.21 Million Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Appleton Partners Inc. MA raised its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 5.3% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 3,424 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 172 shares during the period. Appleton Partners Inc. MA’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,205,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $35,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total transaction of $1,723,205.00. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 20,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,446,422.28. This trade represents a 18.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $386.04 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $241.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.39, a PEG ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $361.83 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $351.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results 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. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. UBS Group upped their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler raised their price target 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. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

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.