Schear Investment Advisers LLC Buys 50 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Schear Investment Advisers LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.3% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 3,796 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 50 shares during the period. Schear Investment Advisers LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,342,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board increased its stake in Accenture by 19.1% in the first quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board now owns 2,097 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $727,000 after purchasing an additional 336 shares in the last quarter. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 55.0% in the first quarter. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,352 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $469,000 after purchasing an additional 480 shares in the last quarter. Davis R M Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.5% in the first quarter. Davis R M Inc. now owns 134,366 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $46,573,000 after buying an additional 7,023 shares during the period. Trustmark National Bank Trust Department acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the first quarter valued at approximately $275,000. Finally, Lcnb Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.2% in the first quarter. Lcnb Corp now owns 3,912 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,356,000 after buying an additional 120 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at $3,649,265.25. The trade was a 4.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $353.57 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $221.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.93, a P/E/G ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 1.25. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $355.55 and its 200 day simple moving average is $327.26.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.71 earnings per share. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current year.

Accenture announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.67%. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 51.79%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Bank of America upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Mizuho upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Barclays increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $368.23.

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.