Virtus ETF Advisers LLC Acquires New Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Virtus ETF Advisers LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 3,187 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,121,000.

A number of other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA lifted 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 buying an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 7.4% in the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $812,000 after acquiring an additional 158 shares during the period. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC boosted its stake in Accenture by 126.8% during the 4th quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $14,090,000 after acquiring an additional 22,391 shares during the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in 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 valued at $1,088,000 after purchasing an additional 843 shares during the period. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 127.1% in the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $817,000 after purchasing an additional 1,300 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Barclays decreased their price objective on Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 24th. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $377.82.

Accenture Trading Up 0.8 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $293.63 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $275.01 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The business’s 50 day moving average is $316.14 and its 200-day moving average is $347.25. The stock has a market cap of $183.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.63, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm 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 company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid 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 2.02%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. This represents a 17.13 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 15,041 shares of company stock valued at $5,254,956. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.