Insider Selling: Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Insider Sells $134,437.50 in Stock

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website.

Angela Beatty also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, October 22nd, Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of Accenture stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14.

Accenture Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of ACN opened at $361.63 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $226.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.64, a PEG 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 $387.51. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $360.21 and its 200-day moving average price is $338.81.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.64%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its board has approved a share buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in Accenture during the third quarter worth $25,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at about $28,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 607.1% during the 3rd 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, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $39,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a report on Monday, September 30th. Guggenheim increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, UBS Group raised their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.23.

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.