1,950 Shares in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Purchased by St. Clair Advisors LLC

St. Clair Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 1,950 shares of the information technology services provider's stock, valued at approximately $686,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Promus Capital LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $34,000. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $35,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of several analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Barclays cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 24th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Mizuho dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 26th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $382.14.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total value of $1,003,982.14. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares in the company, valued at $4,857,041.86. This trade represents a 17.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 15,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,161,650. This trade represents a 13.60% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company's stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN traded down $1.50 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $316.22. The company had a trading volume of 2,995,018 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,993,815. The business's 50-day simple moving average is $302.56 and its 200 day simple moving average is $340.66. The stock has a market cap of $198.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.53, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $275.01 and a 1 year high of $398.35. 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 (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) 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. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business's quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.87%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio is presently 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.