Ellyn Shook Sells 5,000 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total value of $1,536,100.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 13,699 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,208,606.78. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $308.01 on Friday. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $261.68 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $349.66 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $342.14. The company has a market capitalization of $206.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.92, a P/E/G ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 1.19.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.11. Accenture had a net margin of 10.89% and a return on equity of 28.30%. The firm had revenue of $15.80 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $15.85 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.69 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down .1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 11th will be issued a dividend of $1.29 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 10th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.68%. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 46.78%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.3% during the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 4,284,770 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,315,832,000 after acquiring an additional 96,414 shares during the period. Redwood Investments LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 8.3% during the fourth quarter. Redwood Investments LLC now owns 20,227 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $7,098,000 after acquiring an additional 1,542 shares during the period. Chicago Capital LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 284.7% during the fourth quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 12,677 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,449,000 after acquiring an additional 9,382 shares during the period. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 33,484.1% in the fourth quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 567,572 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $199,167,000 after buying an additional 565,882 shares during the last quarter. Finally, VELA Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.3% in the third quarter. VELA Investment Management LLC now owns 3,681 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,130,000 after buying an additional 153 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $417.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, March 18th. Mizuho reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $398.00 price target (down previously from $426.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, March 22nd. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on Accenture from $374.00 to $381.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, March 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 18th. Finally, TD Cowen lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $350.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.00.

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.