Summit Financial LLC Buys 681 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Summit Financial LLC lifted its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 5.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 14,028 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 681 shares during the period. Summit Financial LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $4,935,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA grew its stake in Accenture by 6.5% in the fourth quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 7.4% in the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $812,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the period. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 126.8% in the 4th quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $14,090,000 after acquiring an additional 22,391 shares in the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its stake in Accenture by 37.5% during the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,088,000 after acquiring an additional 843 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 127.1% in the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $817,000 after purchasing an additional 1,300 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Up 2.8 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $312.78 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $354.17 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $355.81. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a market cap of $195.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.24, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for 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%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.77 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company 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. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.89%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 48.89%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 26th. 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 note on Monday, March 17th. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 24th. Mizuho reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus cut 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. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.23.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total value of $1,723,205.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 20,526 shares in the company, valued at $7,446,422.28. This trade represents a 18.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company 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.