New Covenant Trust Company N.A. Makes New Investment in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund purchased 515 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $179,000.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. DiNuzzo Private Wealth Inc. acquired a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $27,000. Annapolis Financial Services LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 507.7% during the 1st quarter. Annapolis Financial Services LLC now owns 79 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $27,000 after acquiring an additional 66 shares in the last quarter. Ables Iannone Moore & Associates Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $29,000. Atwood & Palmer Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 214.8% in the 1st quarter. Atwood & Palmer Inc. now owns 85 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 58 shares during the period. Finally, Grayhawk Investment Strategies Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $35,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of several recent research reports. Robert W. Baird cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $372.00 to $345.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 16th. Guggenheim reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $395.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, May 24th. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on shares of Accenture in a research report on Monday, June 24th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $335.00 price target on the stock. Piper Sandler Companies dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, June 17th. Finally, Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Accenture from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $382.00 to $300.00 in a report on Wednesday, June 26th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $351.82.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total value of $1,649,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 8,989 shares in the company, valued at $2,964,751.98. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 3,776 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.05, for a total value of $1,166,972.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,819 shares in the company, valued at $3,652,661.95. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total transaction of $1,649,100.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 8,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,964,751.98. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 21,421 shares of company stock valued at $6,912,635 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN traded down $2.56 on Thursday, reaching $328.06. 2,538,114 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,926,408. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $304.93 and its 200-day moving average price is $331.30. 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 $205.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.04, a PEG ratio of 3.67 and a beta of 1.23.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.15 by ($0.02). The business had revenue of $16.47 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.55 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The business’s revenue was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.19 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 11.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 11th will be given a $1.29 dividend. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 11th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 47.25%.

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.