653 Shares in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Purchased by Second Line Capital LLC

Second Line Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 653 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $231,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,311,102,000 after buying an additional 131,544 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.4% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,786,256,000 after acquiring an additional 80,514 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its position in Accenture by 378.9% in the third 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the 3rd 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 purchasing an additional 56,937 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Mizuho increased their price objective on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the company from $329.00 to $395.00 in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $372.09.

Accenture Stock Up 1.0 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $362.98 on Wednesday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $360.26 and a 200 day moving average price of $333.42. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $226.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.76, a PEG ratio of 3.22 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.71 earnings per share. Accenture’s revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.76 EPS 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 given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.63%. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other Accenture news, COO John F. Walsh sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.24, for a total value of $1,866,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,593 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,566,411.32. The trade was a 22.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. 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 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.