Prudential Financial Inc. Increases Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Prudential Financial Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.5% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 117,072 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 600 shares during the period. Prudential Financial Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $41,185,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th 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 period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Piper Sandler lowered their price target on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, March 20th. Guggenheim dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. UBS Group cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.91.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $308.97 on Wednesday. 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 $193.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.92, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $357.53 and its 200-day moving average price is $356.88. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.77 earnings per share. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.92%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.