Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Position Raised by Orrstown Financial Services Inc.

Orrstown Financial Services Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 58.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,398 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 514 shares during the period. Orrstown Financial Services Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $492,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in ACN. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 44.7% during the second quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $822,238,000 after purchasing an additional 837,677 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB increased its position in Accenture by 16.6% in the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $901,967,000 after purchasing an additional 363,401 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have commented on the stock. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $383.74.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 16,446 shares of company stock worth $5,852,848. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN traded down $2.57 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $375.82. 307,316 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,661,639. The stock has a market capitalization of $235.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.54, a PEG ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. 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 business has a 50 day moving average of $358.27 and a 200-day moving average of $349.02. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 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 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

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.