Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by Umpqua Bank

Umpqua Bank trimmed its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.8% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 4,096 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 75 shares during the quarter. Umpqua Bank’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,429,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% during the 4th quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $182,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. Tradition Wealth Management LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,871,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the period. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $230,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the period. Finally, TCW Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 11,501 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,065,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Piper Sandler cut their target price on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $359.16 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $357.13. 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 company has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

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.