1,293 Shares in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Bought by Murphy & Mullick Capital Management Corp

Murphy & Mullick Capital Management Corp acquired a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 1,293 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $455,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $21,246,236,000 after acquiring an additional 392,183 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its position 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 purchasing an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted 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 buying an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in Accenture by 2.9% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,746,455,000 after buying an additional 140,726 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Amundi increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 27.9% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,353,909,000 after buying an additional 826,038 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total transaction of $340,645.67. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on ACN shares. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. StockNews.com cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 21st. Mizuho reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. Eight equities 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. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $378.91.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $308.97 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $357.53 and a 200 day simple moving average of $356.88. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. 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 capitalization of $193.35 billion, a PE ratio of 25.92, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

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

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.