ProShare Advisors LLC Acquires 8,703 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

ProShare Advisors LLC lifted its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 6.4% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 145,395 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after buying an additional 8,703 shares during the quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC's holdings in Accenture were worth $51,149,000 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. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA raised its holdings in Accenture by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $22,314,000 after acquiring an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.4% during the fourth quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $812,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares during the period. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its stake in Accenture by 37.5% in the 4th quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,088,000 after purchasing an additional 843 shares during the period. SteelPeak Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 127.1% during the fourth quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $817,000 after buying an additional 1,300 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $4,325,526,000 after acquiring an additional 1,770,024 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on ACN. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a "hold" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. UBS Group cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Piper Sandler decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. Barclays decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 24th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $381.76.

Insider Activity

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total value of $812,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 15,882 shares in the company, valued at $5,161,650. This trade represents a 13.60% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 9,965 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366 in the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Accenture Trading Up 0.1%

Shares of NYSE ACN traded up $0.31 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $319.70. The company had a trading volume of 2,928,363 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,985,593. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $275.01 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a market cap of $200.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.82, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The company's fifty day moving average price is $302.50 and its 200-day moving average price is $340.97.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. The company's revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.85%. Accenture's payout ratio is currently 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.