Ryoji Sekido Sells 2,500 Shares of Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock

Key Points

• Ryoji Sekido, the CEO of Accenture, sold 2,500 shares of the company's stock on October 22nd for a total value of $623,675, reducing his position by 64.27%.
• Accenture's recent quarterly earnings surpassed expectations, with an EPS of $3.03 compared to the consensus estimate of $2.98, and revenue of $17.60 billion.
• The company announced an increase in its quarterly dividend to $1.63 per share, reflecting a dividend yield of 2.6% and a boost from the previous dividend of $1.48.

Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.47, for a total value of $623,675.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 1,390 shares in the company, valued at approximately $346,763.30. This trade represents a 64.27% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE:ACN traded up $0.45 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $249.59. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,879,678 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,867,859. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $247.18 and a 200-day simple moving average of $278.05. Accenture PLC has a twelve month low of $229.40 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $164.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.54, a PEG ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.42.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. The firm had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.The company's revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.66 earnings per share. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Stockholders 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%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 10th. This is a boost from Accenture's previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 53.66%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on Accenture from $325.00 to $271.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, September 9th. Wolfe Research lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $285.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Wednesday. Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Accenture to a "moderate sell" rating in a report on Monday, July 28th. Rothschild & Co Redburn boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $250.00 to $255.00 in a report on Friday, September 19th. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $300.00 to $255.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, September 24th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $297.48.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in Accenture by 17.8% during the 3rd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 159,323 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $39,304,000 after purchasing an additional 24,101 shares in the last quarter. BKM Wealth Management LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 1.0% in the 3rd quarter. BKM Wealth Management LLC now owns 8,623 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $2,126,000 after purchasing an additional 88 shares in the last quarter. Steigerwald Gordon & Koch Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Steigerwald Gordon & Koch Inc. now owns 71,523 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $17,638,000 after purchasing an additional 1,390 shares in the last quarter. Ferguson Wellman Capital Management Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 1,408.2% in the 3rd quarter. Ferguson Wellman Capital Management Inc. now owns 84,430 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $20,820,000 after purchasing an additional 78,832 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Baker Ellis Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $684,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company's stock.

Accenture Company 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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