Accenture PLC $ACN Shares Bought by D.A. Davidson & CO.

Key Points

• D.A. Davidson & CO. increased its stake in Accenture PLC by 73.7%, owning 220,274 shares valued at $65,838,000 as of the end of the last quarter.
• Accenture recently reported a quarterly earnings per share of $3.03, surpassing analysts' expectations, with a revenue of $17.60 billion for the quarter.
• The company announced a quarterly dividend increase to $1.63, reflecting an annualized dividend of $6.52 and a yield of 2.6%.

D.A. Davidson & CO. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 73.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 220,274 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 93,443 shares during the period. D.A. Davidson & CO.'s holdings in Accenture were worth $65,838,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in 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 acquiring an additional 3,419,577 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 63.9% during the 1st 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 in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 3.5% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,766,369 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $2,111,378,000 after purchasing an additional 228,939 shares during the period. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 2.1% during the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 6,163,393 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $1,923,225,000 after buying an additional 126,548 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 3.3% during the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,129,053 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,600,470,000 after buying an additional 164,573 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have weighed in on ACN shares. Robert W. Baird decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $330.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on Accenture from $302.00 to $290.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. Susquehanna dropped their price objective on Accenture from $330.00 to $270.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, September 18th. Hsbc Global Res raised Accenture to a "moderate sell" rating in a research note on Monday, July 28th. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut shares of Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Saturday, October 11th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have given a Buy rating, ten have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $298.17.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $250.70 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $165.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.63, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 1.28. Accenture PLC has a twelve month low of $229.40 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company's 50-day moving average price is $247.11 and its 200-day moving average price is $278.25. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

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

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.

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