AXQ Capital LP Buys Shares of 1,269 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

AXQ Capital LP bought a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund bought 1,269 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $446,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA boosted its stake in Accenture by 6.5% in the fourth quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $22,314,000 after acquiring an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 7.4% during the fourth quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $812,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the period. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 126.8% during the fourth quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $14,090,000 after buying an additional 22,391 shares during the period. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 37.5% during the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,088,000 after buying an additional 843 shares during the period. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 127.1% during the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $817,000 after buying an additional 1,300 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $359.16 and its two-hundred day moving average is $357.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.60, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly 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 legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Guggenheim reduced their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Piper Sandler cut their target price on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday. Eight equities 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 company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

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.