Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by Captrust Financial Advisors

Captrust Financial Advisors cut its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 14.0% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 82,436 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 13,384 shares during the period. Captrust Financial Advisors’ holdings in Accenture were worth $28,573,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.1% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,718,732 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $20,699,110,000 after acquiring an additional 635,349 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.0% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 8,652,537 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,999,056,000 after acquiring an additional 173,107 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $2,061,490,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.6% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,466,684 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,556,676,000 after acquiring an additional 68,635 shares during the period. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.1% during the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 3,797,028 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,316,086,000 after acquiring an additional 148,738 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Piper Sandler Companies cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, June 17th. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, June 17th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $372.00 to $345.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 16th. Wedbush dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $350.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, Bank of America decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $419.00 to $365.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 5th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $351.82.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total transaction of $2,696,402.25. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 22,849 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,564,161.45. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total transaction of $2,696,402.25. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 22,849 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,564,161.45. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 3,776 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.05, for a total transaction of $1,166,972.80. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,819 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,652,661.95. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 21,421 shares of company stock worth $6,912,635. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Trading Up 0.4 %

Shares of Accenture stock traded up $1.35 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $327.55. 673,256 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,922,252. The company has a market cap of $205.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.66 and a beta of 1.23. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $303.51 and a 200 day simple moving average of $331.52. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.15 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $16.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.55 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.19 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 11.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 11th will be given a $1.29 dividend. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 11th. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 47.25%.

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.