Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. Sells 40 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. trimmed its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.1% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 523 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 40 shares during the period. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $185,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the second quarter worth about $26,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the second quarter worth about $28,000. CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. bought a new position in Accenture during the first quarter worth about $35,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 607.1% during the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Creekmur Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 108.0% during the first quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 54 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Susquehanna increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $368.23.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $343.90 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $214.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.09, a PEG ratio of 3.02 and a beta of 1.25. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $352.47 and a 200 day moving average price of $324.38. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.71 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.72%. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan 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 plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total value of $170,948.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,649,265.25. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at $3,649,265.25. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total value of $2,945,801.52. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,412,909.16. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 33,107 shares of company stock worth $12,275,914 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Accenture 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.