Gratus Wealth Advisors LLC Has $1.23 Million Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Gratus Wealth Advisors LLC lessened its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 26.6% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 3,482 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,263 shares during the quarter. Gratus Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,225,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $34,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the company. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. UBS Group reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective 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. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $377.82.

Accenture Stock Down 1.0 %

ACN stock opened at $285.66 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $178.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.96, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $275.01 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $330.47 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $350.70. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

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. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.77 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.07%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.89%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at $1,943,913.48. The trade was a 14.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 27,921 shares of company stock valued at $9,876,619 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by 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.