Millstone Evans Group LLC Purchases Shares of 105 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Millstone Evans Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 105 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $37,000.

A number of other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 6.5% in the fourth quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after buying an additional 3,883 shares in the last quarter. Davidson Trust Co. lifted its stake in Accenture by 7.4% in the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $812,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 126.8% during the 4th quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $14,090,000 after purchasing an additional 22,391 shares during the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 37.5% in the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,088,000 after purchasing an additional 843 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 127.1% in the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $817,000 after buying an additional 1,300 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of Accenture 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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 can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Baird R W upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. Barclays cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 18th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.91.

Accenture Trading Up 0.6 %

ACN stock opened at $307.24 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $192.27 billion, a PE ratio of 25.78, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $358.32 and its 200 day moving average is $357.10. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.77 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.93%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

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.