Raab & Moskowitz Asset Management LLC Trims Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Raab & Moskowitz Asset Management LLC trimmed its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 13.3% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 935 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 144 shares during the quarter. Raab & Moskowitz Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $331,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. MML Investors Services LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 4.6% during the third quarter. MML Investors Services LLC now owns 132,841 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $46,957,000 after buying an additional 5,828 shares during the period. Headinvest LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Headinvest LLC now owns 33,540 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $11,856,000 after acquiring an additional 109 shares during the period. Dunhill Financial LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 37.5% during the third quarter. Dunhill Financial LLC now owns 253 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $89,000 after acquiring an additional 69 shares in the last quarter. Zacks Investment Management grew its holdings in Accenture by 17.3% in the third quarter. Zacks Investment Management now owns 115,010 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $40,654,000 after purchasing an additional 16,946 shares during the period. Finally, iSAM Funds UK Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $550,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of several recent research reports. Piper Sandler Companies restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Finally, Susquehanna increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $372.09.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at $7,645,075.84. This represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 over the last three months. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN stock opened at $362.70 on Monday. The business’s 50-day moving average is $360.14 and its two-hundred day moving average is $333.04. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $226.75 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.73, a P/E/G ratio of 3.19 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.71 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.76 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has initiated 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 purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Company 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.