Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. Sells 230 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. trimmed its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 5.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,651 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 230 shares during the period. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,284,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Trading Up 1.4 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $359.16 and a 200 day simple moving average of $357.13. 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 market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.77 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ACN has been the topic of several analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $380.05.

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.