Accenture PLC $ACN Shares Bought by Putney Financial Group LLC

Putney Financial Group LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 481.3% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 186 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 154 shares during the period. Putney Financial Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $56,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its position in Accenture by 63.9% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,793,889,000 after purchasing an additional 3,490,569 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,814,234 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $19,912,594,000 after buying an additional 3,419,577 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 2,782.1% during the 1st quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,445,281 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $450,985,000 after acquiring an additional 1,395,135 shares in the last quarter. McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 2nd quarter valued at about $308,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its position in Accenture by 23.5% in the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,823,228 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $880,960,000 after acquiring an additional 537,223 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, September 26th. UBS Group decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $315.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 24th. Wells Fargo & Company started coverage on Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, October 21st. They set an “equal weight” rating and a $251.00 price objective on the stock. Royal Bank Of Canada decreased their target price on Accenture from $372.00 to $285.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Rothschild & Co Redburn upped their price target on Accenture from $250.00 to $255.00 in a report on Friday, September 19th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have issued a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $294.25.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, insider Manish Sharma sold 6,902 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $250.01, for a total value of $1,725,569.02. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 1,860 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $465,018.60. This trade represents a 78.77% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $253.40, for a total transaction of $2,280,600.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 14,516 shares in the company, valued at $3,678,354.40. This represents a 38.27% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last quarter, insiders sold 27,402 shares of company stock worth $6,875,974. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $249.16 on Friday. Accenture PLC has a 12 month low of $229.40 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.42. The firm has a market capitalization of $164.07 billion, a PE ratio of 20.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.28. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $247.03 and its 200 day moving average price is $276.39.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.98 by $0.05. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.The business had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.34 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.66 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.63 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. This represents a $6.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.6%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 53.66%.

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.