Stiles Financial Services Inc Reduces Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Stiles Financial Services Inc reduced its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.5% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 8,345 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 214 shares during the quarter. Accenture comprises about 1.1% of Stiles Financial Services Inc’s holdings, making the stock its 26th biggest holding. Stiles Financial Services Inc’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,936,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 378.9% in the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 47.5% during the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,324,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,212,011 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its position in Accenture by 2,666.5% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 715,219 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $251,607,000 after acquiring an additional 689,366 shares in the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP purchased a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $204,895,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 37,788.5% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $180,401,000 after purchasing an additional 509,011 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of a number of research reports. UBS Group raised their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.22.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $386.04 on Monday. 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 company has a fifty day moving average of $362.30 and a 200 day moving average of $352.18. The company has a market capitalization of $241.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.39, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its 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 return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.27 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

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

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.