Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. Has $1.56 Billion Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.6% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,466,684 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 68,635 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,556,676,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Chilton Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 180.0% in the fourth quarter. Chilton Capital Management LLC now owns 70 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares in the last quarter. DiNuzzo Private Wealth Inc. bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. BluePath Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $31,000. Halpern Financial Inc. bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Finally, Valued Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $50,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Up 0.8 %

ACN traded up $2.61 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $313.27. The company had a trading volume of 851,403 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,482,026. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $261.68 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The company has a market capitalization of $210.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.17, a PEG ratio of 2.88 and a beta of 1.21. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $340.17 and its 200 day moving average price is $342.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 business had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $15.85 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.69 EPS. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.09 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 11th will be paid a $1.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 10th. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 46.78%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on Accenture from $364.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. Citigroup lowered their target price on Accenture from $430.00 to $400.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 22nd. Bank of America increased their price objective on Accenture from $379.00 to $419.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, March 7th. Finally, BNP Paribas raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $440.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.00.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In related news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,937,488.01. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,937,488.01. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total transaction of $1,536,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 13,699 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,208,606.78. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 28,083 shares of company stock valued at $8,959,325 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by company 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.