Embree Financial Group Decreases Stock Position in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)

Embree Financial Group decreased its position in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 5.4% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 2,319 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 132 shares during the quarter. Embree Financial Group’s holdings in Accenture were worth $724,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Capital Research Global Investors increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,325,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares in the last quarter. Alteri Wealth LLC bought a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at $321,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 47.6% in the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,446 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $861,000 after acquiring an additional 789 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at $317,000. Finally, Exchange Traded Concepts LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 62.2% in the 1st quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 905 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $282,000 after purchasing an additional 347 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Trading Up 3.4%

NYSE ACN opened at $295.03 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $307.08 and a 200-day moving average of $333.04. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. Accenture PLC has a 1-year low of $273.19 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $184.79 billion, a PE ratio of 23.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 1.33.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. The firm had revenue of $17.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.26 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 26.55%. The business’s revenue was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.13 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.01%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 47.13%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $325.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on Accenture from $372.00 to $340.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, June 12th. Finally, Benchmark restated a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $374.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction of $47,641.10. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,512,111.60. The trade was a 3.05% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 15,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,161,650. This represents a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Company 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.