New York State Teachers Retirement System Sells 16,099 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

New York State Teachers Retirement System lowered its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 549,047 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 16,099 shares during the quarter. New York State Teachers Retirement System owned 0.09% of Accenture worth $193,149,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Banque Pictet & Cie SA raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 48.7% during the fourth quarter. Banque Pictet & Cie SA now owns 45,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $16,165,000 after acquiring an additional 15,054 shares in the last quarter. W.H. Cornerstone Investments Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 32.2% during the fourth quarter. W.H. Cornerstone Investments Inc. now owns 2,138 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $752,000 after acquiring an additional 521 shares in the last quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 7.5% during the fourth quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 14,900 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $5,242,000 after acquiring an additional 1,035 shares in the last quarter. DT Investment Partners LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 4.1% in the fourth quarter. DT Investment Partners LLC now owns 3,067 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,079,000 after purchasing an additional 121 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Root Financial Partners LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth $286,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have issued reports on ACN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. 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 report on Wednesday, January 8th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Up 0.2 %

Shares of ACN opened at $389.71 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $243.88 billion, a PE ratio of 32.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50 day moving average is $364.15 and its 200 day moving average is $353.43. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. Research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.52%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

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.