Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CEO Julie Spellman Sweet Sells 2,497 Shares of Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Julie Spellman Sweet also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, October 28th, Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of Accenture stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52.

Accenture Stock Up 1.1 %

ACN stock opened at $356.31 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $222.98 billion, a PE ratio of 29.89, a P/E/G ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $357.49 and a 200 day simple moving average of $346.26.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture declared that its board has authorized a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.66%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in ACN. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Accenture by 1.8% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.4% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,786,256,000 after purchasing an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its position in Accenture by 378.9% during the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after buying an additional 56,937 shares during the period. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 44.7% in the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $822,238,000 after buying an additional 837,677 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $383.74.

Accenture Company 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.