Arete Wealth Advisors LLC Buys 131 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Arete Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,882 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 131 shares during the period. Arete Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $662,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 5.7% in the fourth quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $182,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 4.6% in the fourth quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $230,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.5% during the 4th quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC now owns 418 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $147,000 after buying an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Finally, TCW Group Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 11,501 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,065,000 after buying an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently commented on ACN. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. 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. Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Mizuho decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Barclays reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 24th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $378.23.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $285.04 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 $178.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.91, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $349.68 and its 200 day moving average is $354.42. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.77 EPS. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 48.89%.

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.