Capital Investment Advisors LLC Acquires 4,956 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Capital Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 70.2% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 12,014 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 4,956 shares during the period. Capital Investment Advisors LLC's holdings in Accenture were worth $3,749,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 18.1% in the first quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC now owns 39,613 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $12,361,000 after purchasing an additional 6,058 shares during the last quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.8% in the first quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC now owns 36,459 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $11,377,000 after purchasing an additional 649 shares during the last quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.8% in the first quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN now owns 3,452 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,077,000 after purchasing an additional 157 shares during the last quarter. SOA Wealth Advisors LLC. increased its holdings in Accenture by 231.9% during the first quarter. SOA Wealth Advisors LLC. now owns 312 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $97,000 after buying an additional 218 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Professional Advisory Services Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 11.1% during the first quarter. Professional Advisory Services Inc. now owns 67,278 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $20,993,000 after buying an additional 6,740 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently issued reports on ACN shares. Mizuho decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a "hold" rating in a report on Wednesday, March 26th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Seven 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $382.14.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock traded down $1.72 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $319.20. The stock had a trading volume of 1,858,984 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,964,348. The stock's fifty day simple moving average is $304.23 and its 200 day simple moving average is $336.42. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $275.01 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $199.92 billion, a PE ratio of 26.78, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.33.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) 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 analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.77 earnings per share. Accenture's revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.85%. Accenture's payout ratio is presently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 9,965 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,806,442.95. The trade was a 18.65% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. The trade was a 17.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is 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.