First Merchants Corp Has $13.23 Million Stock Position in Accenture PLC $ACN

First Merchants Corp reduced its holdings in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 2.8% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 44,274 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after selling 1,283 shares during the quarter. First Merchants Corp's holdings in Accenture were worth $13,233,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Brighton Jones LLC increased its position in Accenture by 36.2% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 18,438 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $6,486,000 after acquiring an additional 4,905 shares during the period. Signet Financial Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 1st quarter valued at $823,000. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 41.4% in the 1st quarter. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC now owns 4,864 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,518,000 after purchasing an additional 1,424 shares during the last quarter. Accurate Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 26.5% in the 1st quarter. Accurate Wealth Management LLC now owns 2,318 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $663,000 after purchasing an additional 485 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Integrated Advisors Network LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 11.4% in the 1st quarter. Integrated Advisors Network LLC now owns 18,470 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $5,763,000 after purchasing an additional 1,885 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently commented on ACN. UBS Group reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $315.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $302.00 to $290.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Wolfe Research reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $290.00 to $285.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 23rd. Evercore ISI set a $280.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Thursday, September 25th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $325.00 to $271.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 9th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating, ten have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $300.22.

Accenture Stock Up 0.8%

Accenture stock opened at $253.17 on Thursday. Accenture PLC has a 1-year low of $229.40 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $158.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.28. The firm's fifty day moving average price is $248.02 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $282.42. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed 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 represents a $6.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.6%. This is a positive change from Accenture's previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. Accenture's payout ratio is 48.72%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total value of $635,794.95. Following the completion of 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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $57,315.02. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 5,249 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,482,002.66. This represents a 3.72% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 2,954 shares of company stock valued at $834,280. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company's stock.

Accenture 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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