Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Reduces Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Thrivent Financial for Lutherans lowered its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.2% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 47,375 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,072 shares during the period. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans’ holdings in Accenture were worth $16,731,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have commented on the company. Piper Sandler lowered their price target on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Robert W. Baird raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was 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 in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % 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, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $305.17 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization 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 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35. 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 business has a 50-day moving average of $359.16 and a 200-day moving average of $357.13.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results 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 company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.77 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

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