O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC Buys 11,240 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 11.8% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 106,159 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 11,240 shares during the period. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $37,346,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth approximately $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently commented on ACN. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective 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. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $378.23.

Accenture Trading Down 1.4 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $304.32 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $190.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.53, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 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 company has a fifty day moving average of $354.96 and a 200 day moving average of $356.03. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.77 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.95%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture 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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was 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 worth $8,181,753. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.