Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. Boosts Stock Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

Key Points

• Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. increased its holdings in Accenture PLC by 21.2%, acquiring an additional 12,182 shares, bringing their total to 69,631 shares valued at approximately $20.81 million.
• Accenture reported a quarterly earnings per share (EPS) of $3.03, exceeding analyst estimates of $2.98, with revenues of $17.60 billion during the quarter.
• Accenture announced a quarterly dividend of $1.63, an increase from the previous dividend of $1.48, representing an annualized yield of 2.8%.

Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. boosted its position in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 21.2% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 69,631 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after acquiring an additional 12,182 shares during the period. Stratos Wealth Partners LTD.'s holdings in Accenture were worth $20,812,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Brighton Jones LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 36.2% during the fourth 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 in the last quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 4.2% during the first quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 238,295 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $74,357,000 after acquiring an additional 9,689 shares in the last quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 62.2% during the first quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 905 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $282,000 after acquiring an additional 347 shares in the last quarter. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 13.4% during the first quarter. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 2,095 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $654,000 after acquiring an additional 248 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 0.5% during the first quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 383,436 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $119,647,000 after purchasing an additional 1,890 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Accenture Trading Down 2.5%

Shares of ACN opened at $233.79 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $246.79 and a 200-day moving average price of $279.67. Accenture PLC has a fifty-two week low of $229.40 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a current ratio of 1.42. The firm has a market cap of $146.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.24, a PEG ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.28.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 EPS 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 company had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.66 EPS. The firm's 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. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be issued a $1.63 dividend. This is a boost from Accenture's previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 10th. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.8%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 53.66%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on ACN shares. Rothschild & Co Redburn lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $250.00 to $255.00 in a research report on Friday, September 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $302.00 to $290.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 26th. UBS Group dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $315.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 24th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Saturday, October 11th. Finally, Guggenheim lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $305.00 to $285.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, ten have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $300.22.

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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