State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D Sells 19,343 Shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)

State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D decreased its holdings in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 8.4% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 211,642 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 19,343 shares during the period. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D’s holdings in Accenture were worth $66,041,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% during the first 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 last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 30,256.8% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,421,519 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,067,651,000 after purchasing an additional 3,410,248 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors boosted its holdings in 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 during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in Accenture by 2,782.1% in the first quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,445,281 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $450,985,000 after purchasing an additional 1,395,135 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 10.7% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 7,582,344 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,667,393,000 after acquiring an additional 732,769 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total value of $635,794.95. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 8,109 shares in the company, valued at $2,290,387.05. This represents a 21.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $141,170.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,283 shares in the company, valued at $644,582.22. The trade was a 17.97% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 2,954 shares of company stock worth $834,280. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of several analyst reports. Benchmark reiterated a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, June 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $349.00 to $353.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, June 16th. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $340.00 to $325.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. Barclays reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $360.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, June 23rd. Finally, UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $395.00 price target (up from $390.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $360.21.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $246.07 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $285.33 and a 200-day moving average price of $312.52. Accenture PLC has a fifty-two week low of $236.67 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $154.12 billion, a PE ratio of 19.59, a PEG ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a current ratio of 1.46.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. Accenture had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 26.55%. The firm had revenue of $17.73 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.26 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.13 EPS. Accenture’s revenue was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts predict that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.4%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 47.13%.

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.