Foster Dykema Cabot & Partners LLC Sells 53,397 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Foster Dykema Cabot & Partners LLC reduced its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 79.0% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 14,154 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 53,397 shares during the period. Foster Dykema Cabot & Partners LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $4,979,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. First Commonwealth Financial Corp PA raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 475.2% in the fourth quarter. First Commonwealth Financial Corp PA now owns 3,566 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,254,000 after buying an additional 2,946 shares during the period. Farringdon Capital Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $1,088,000. Coleford Investment Management Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at $15,428,000. Greenwood Gearhart Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 8.9% in the fourth quarter. Greenwood Gearhart Inc. now owns 37,438 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $13,170,000 after purchasing an additional 3,071 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MSH Capital Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $304,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have commented on ACN. UBS Group dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $377.82.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at $1,943,913.48. This represents a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction 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 have sold a total of 27,921 shares of company stock valued at $9,876,619 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Down 1.0 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $285.66 on Thursday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $330.47 and its 200 day moving average price is $350.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $275.01 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $178.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion for 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 company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.07%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Accenture Profile

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.