Quantinno Capital Management LP Acquires 29,563 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Quantinno Capital Management LP raised its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 28.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 133,264 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after buying an additional 29,563 shares during the period. Accenture accounts for about 0.5% of Quantinno Capital Management LP's investment portfolio, making the stock its 24th biggest position. Quantinno Capital Management LP's holdings in Accenture were worth $46,881,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 5.7% in the fourth quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $182,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 4.6% during the fourth quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $230,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.5% during the fourth quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC now owns 418 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $147,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Finally, M3 Advisory Group LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 4.1% during the fourth quarter. M3 Advisory Group LLC now owns 753 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $265,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the 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 transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 17,237 shares of the company's stock, valued at $4,857,041.86. This 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 can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total transaction 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 represents a 18.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Mizuho dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 24th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 16th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $381.76.

Accenture Stock Down 1.8%

ACN traded down $5.76 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $317.45. 3,967,388 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,993,760. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $275.01 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The stock's 50-day moving average is $302.60 and its two-hundred day moving average is $341.22. The stock has a market cap of $198.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.63, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

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 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.77 earnings per share. The company's quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared 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. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.86%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.