570 Shares in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Acquired by Cherrydale Wealth Management LLC

Cherrydale Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 570 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $200,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 607.1% during the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth about $39,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of a number of research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Susquehanna upped their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $385.04.

Accenture Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of ACN traded up $1.77 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $352.33. The company had a trading volume of 4,061,199 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,320,392. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $357.65 and its 200 day moving average price is $345.02. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The stock has a market cap of $220.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.56, a PEG ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. This trade represents a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 26,125 shares of company stock valued at $9,570,260. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate 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.